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linslotB  IS.ioids 


CATHERINE   DE   MEDICIS 


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CATHERINE    DE   MEDICIS,    QUEEN   OF   FRANCE 
From  a  painting  in  the  Ufflzi  Gallery,  Florence 


CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 


BY 

PAUL  VAN  DYKE 

PEOFESSOR   IN  HISTORY   AT   PRINCETON   UNIVERSITY 


VOLUME  I 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1922 


Copyright,  1922  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  Amerioa 


Published  November,  1922 


V3 

V.l  67452 


PREFACE 

There  is  around  the  popular  conception  of  Catherine 
de  Medicis  a  sort  of  aura  of  wickedness  so  visible  that  most 
readers  open  a  book  about  her  with  the  unspoken  question, 
"Was  she  as  bad  as  they  say?"  and  expect  the  writer  will 
soon  betray  himself  either  as  an  apologete  or  a  prosecutor. 
The  writer  of  this  book  hopes  this  expectation  will  be  dis- 
appointed. He  is  far  from  any  desire  to  defend  the  char- 
acter of  Catherine  de  Medicis  and  equally  far  from  any 
interest  in  attacking  it.  He  only  desires  to  show  her  as 
she  was,  and  he  leaves  the  reader  to  decide  about  the  mcked- 
ness.  This  does  not  mean  that  he  considers  it  the  duty  of 
a  historian  to  be  unconcerned  about  right  and  wrong  or  to 
assume  that  they  are  entirely  sliifting  and  relative.  Such 
an  attempt  at  artificial  demoralization  is  never  entirely 
successful,  and,  m  a  writer  of  biography,  it  can  result  only 
in  a  picture  affected  by  a  bias  of  which  the  reader  has  no 
warning.  But  he  has  tried  meticulously  never  to  let  Ms 
sympathies  interfere  with  the  full  and  balanced  presenta- 
tion of  fact.  He  wants  to  draw  a  portrait,  not  to  pro- 
noimce  a  judgment. 

There  are  few  great  personages  of  the  last  four  hundred 
years  so  many  of  whose  written  and  spoken  words  have 
survived  as  Catherine  de  Medicis;  and  in  addition  there  is 
a  very  large  number  of  opinions  about  her  conduct  or  char- 
acter recorded  by  people  who  knew  her.  It  is  on  these  that 
this  book  is  based.  Of  the  2,686  citations  offered  as  proofs 
of  its  narrative  or  its  rare  opinions,  1,059  are  from  contem- 
porary documents  printed  in  full  in  collections  of  documents 
or  appendices  to  books,  1,013  are  from  my  own  transcripts 
of  unprinted  mss.  in  archives,  371  are  from  histories  or 
memoirs  written  by  contemporaries  of  Catherine,  137  are 


vi  PREFACE 

from  contemporary  mss.  cited  by  modem  authors,  and  136 
are  from  the  text  of  modern  authors. 

I  formed  the  purpose  of  writing  this  book  fifteen  years 
ago  and  it  has  occupied  the  time,  not  absorbed  by  class- 
room duties,  of  ten  years  since.  I  have  been  able  to  spend 
in  European  archives  one  period  of  twelve  months,  one 
period  of  six  months,  and  four  periods  of  six  weeks.  Most 
of  this  time,  too  little  by  half,  was  spent  at  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale  and  at  the  Archives  Nation  ales,  but  I  have  visited 
for  longer  or  shorter  periods  the  Vatican  Archives,  the  Ar- 
chives at  Florence,  Modena,  Mantua,  Genoa,  Naples, 
Lucerne,  Basle,  Berne,  Zurich,  Solothurn,  Freibourg,  and 
the  British  Museum.  I  regret  that  lack  of  time  kept  me  from 
the  Archives  at  Turin,  and  that  the  war  cut  me  off  from  my 
only  chance  to  visit  Venice.  A  third  volume  appended  to 
this  work  contams  484  unprinted  letters  of  Catherine  and 
other  documents  gathered  during  these  researches.  In  ad- 
dition I  made  about  three  thousand  extracts  for  my  own 
use  from  manuscripts,  letters,  and  reports. 

We  have  various  reports  from  the  French  court  during 
Catherine's  life  from  Spanish,  English,  Ferrarese  Ambas- 
sadors, Tuscan  Agents,  Papal  Legates  and  Nmicios,  and 
Imperial  Envoys.  They  must  be  used  with  common  sense. 
Spain  became  so  hated  that  it  was  hard  for  the  Spanish 
Ambassadors  to  get  at  the  inside  of  things  and  they  were 
violently  prejudiced,  but  they  give  good  information  about 
the  councils  of  the  extreme  orthodox  party  and  sometimes 
report  talks  with  Catherine.  The  English  Ambassadors, 
though  informed  about  Huguenot  or  Politique  plans,  were 
prejudiced  and  often  misinformed  about  other  matters. 
The  Ferrarese  Ambassadors  had  close  connections  with 
the  family  of  Guise  through  the  household  of  the  Duchess. 
The  most  trustworthy  and  the  least  prejudiced  are  the  Vene- 
tian Ambassadors,  who  wrote  regularly  eveiy  two  weeks. 

I  have  read  practically  eveiy  book  of  importance  which 
bears  on  the  life  and  times  of  Catherine  de  Medicis.  But 
the  publication  of  the  admirable  bibliography  of  Mr.  Henri 
Hauser  covering  the  histoiy  of  France  during  her  life  has 


PREFACE  vii 

made  it  superfluous  to  print  a  separate  bibliography.  An 
alphabetical  Hst  of  archives  and  books  cited  is  at  the  end  of 
the  book. 

The  reader  may  notice  the  absence  from  the  list  of  books 
cited  of  any  life  of  Catherine  de  Medicis.  The  reason  is 
that  no  Kfe  of  her  based  on  first-hand  evidence  existed  while 
this  book  was  being  written.  Indeed,  before  the  comple- 
tion of  the  edition  of  her  letters  by  the  Coimts  Hector  de 
la  Ferriere  and  Baguenault  de  Puchesse  (prmted  by  the 
Ministry  of  Public  Instmction  in  ten  volumes,  1880  to  1909), 
it  was  hardly  feasible  to  attempt  such  a  life.  My  book 
was  completed  and  in  the  hands  of  the  printers  before  I 
heard  of  the  publication  of  the  life  of  Catherine  de  Medicis 
by  Mr.  Mariejol.  I  regret  that  I  was  not  able  to  be  guided 
in  writing  it  by  the  results  of  the  labors  of  that  eminent 
French  scholar  and  distinguished  historian. 

A  hst  of  167  review  articles,  all  of  them  consulted  and 
many  of  them  cited,  is  given  at  the  end  of  Volume  II.  I 
regret  that  lack  of  time  abroad  prevented  me  from  examin- 
ing as  fully  as  I  should  have  liked  to  do  the  French  pro- 
vincial reviews. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  what  Catherine  de  Medicis 
did  and  what  she  was  \\ithout  knowing  the  public  events 
in  which  for  thirty  years  she  was  involved,  but  the  attempt 
has  been  made  to  let  the  reader  see  them  as  far  as  possible 
from  the  center  of  her  life  outward.  The  absence  of  due 
reference  to  some  great  social  and  economic  changes  which 
were  going  on  during  her  lifetime  arises  from  the  fact  that, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge  from  what  she  wrote,  said,  and  did, 
Catherine  was  so  Httle  interested  in  them  as  to  be  practically 
unaware  that  they  were  taking  place.  As  I  hope  that  this 
book  will  be  read  by  people  who  have  no  scientific  training 
in  histor}^,  I  have  avoided  hasty  reference  to  things  the 
reader  might  not  understand,  preferring  the  risk  of  becom- 
ing prosy  by  overmuch  explanation  to  the  risk  of  seeming 
dull  by  being  obscure.  The  chronological  method  of  pres- 
entation has  been  used  in  spite  of  a  certain  almost  inevi- 
table monotony  that  haunts  it,  because,  although  a  larger 


viii  PREFACE 

use  of  the  topical  method  might  produce  a  book  more  agree- 
able to  read,  it  ran  the  risk  of  producing  one  less  true. 


The  preceding  preface  was  written  in  March  1921.  Busi- 
ness reasons  rendered  desirable  the  postponement  of  the 
printing  of  the  book.  When  it  was  taken  in  hand  again 
this  year,  my  engagement  in  the  work  of  the  American 
University  Union  in  Paris  compelled  me  to  correct  my  proofs 
across  the  Atlantic  at  a  distance  from  my  books  and  notes 
and  to  abandon  the  pul^Hcation  of  the  third  volume  of 
documents;  both  because  of  the  expense  and  for  lack  of 
leisure  to  verify  my  transcripts. 

Paris,  September,  1922. 


PAQB 


CONTENTS 

VOLUME  I 

I.  Birth  and  Childhood 3 

II.  Marriage 17 

III.  Wife  of  the  Heir  Apparent 30 

IV.  Queen  of  France 47 

V.  The  First  Taste  of  Real  Power 64 

VI.    Disaster  and  Sorrow 86 

VII.    The  Great  European  Convulsion       ....     107 

VIII.     The  Illegal  Establishment  of  "the  Reformed 

Church"  in  France 124 

IX.     Under   the   Thumb   of  the   Guise,     The  Con- 
spiracy of  Amboise.     "The  Huguenots"  .     .     138 

X.  Catherine  Launches  Her  Policy  of  Concilia- 
tion. The  Conspiracy  of  Conde  Puts  the 
Guise  Again  in  Control 159 

XI.     The  Death  of  Francis  II.     Catherine  Regent 

OF  France 180 

XII.     Catherine  Defends  Her  Authority  by  Politics  .     194 

XIII.  Forming    Factions.      The    Huguenots    Support 

Catherine,  Who  Favors  Them 206 

XIV.  Riot    and    Murder.     The    Edict    of    January 

Legalizes  the  Reformed  Worship  ....     225 

XV.    The  Line  Drawn   for  Civil  War.    Catherine 

Between  Guise  and  Conde 237 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

PACK 

XVI.  The  First  Civil  War  About  Religion.  Cathe- 
rine THE  Peacemaker.  The  Huguenots 
Force  the  Peace  of  Amboise 258 

XVII.    Peace  and  Politics.    England  and  Spain  .     .     281 

XVIII.    Catherine's  Plans  for  France  and  Christen- 
dom      300 

XIX.    The  Interview  of  Bayonne  and  the  Council 

of  Trent 317 

XX.  Feuds  and  Quarrels.  Heresy  in  the  Nether- 
lands.   Hatred  and  Suspicion  of  Spain       .     337 

XXI.     The   Huguenots   Renew   Civil   War.     Their 

Army 351 

XXII.     Catherine    Makes    Peace.      The    Politiques. 

Catherine  Renews  Civil  War       ....     372 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

VOLUME  I 

Catherine  de  Medicis,  Queen  of  France Frontispiece 

From  a  painting  in  the  Uffizi  Gallery,  Florence 

FACINO   PAGE 

Francis  II  and  his  wife,  Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scotland 

Queen  Catherine  de  Medicis  in  her  youth  when  she  was  married  to 

Henry,  Duke  of  Orleans,  afterwards  Iving  of  France 
The  second  son  of  Catherine  and  her  twin  daughters  who  died 

shortly  after  their  birth 40 

From  the  prayer-book  of  Catherine  de  Medicis,  made  to  be  swung 
from  a  chain  at  the  girdle— now  in  the  Louvre 

Henry  II,  husband  of  Catherine  de  Medicis 106 

From  a  painting  in  the  Louvre  attributed  to  Frangois  Clouet 

Charles  IX,  second  son  of  Catherine  de  Medicis 358 

From  a  painting  in  the  Louvre  attributed  to  Franjois  Clouet 


CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 


CHAPTER  I 

BIRTH   AND    CHILDHOOD 

Gaterina  de'  Medici  was  born  in  Florence,  on  the  thir- 
teenth April,  1519,  in  the  stately  house  built  by  her  great- 
great-great-great-grandfather  Cosimo  de'  Medici,  seventy- 
five  years  before.  Cosimo  was  at  his  death  the  greatest  man 
in  Florence  and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  figures  in 
Italy.  He  had  inherited  from  his  ancestors,  merchants  in 
woollen  goods  and  bankers,  a  large  fortune  and  he  had  in- 
creased it  six  fold.  He  had  also  used  his  inherited  position  as 
leader  of  the  democratic  party  which  has  successfully  op- 
posed the  party  of  the  aristocracy  and  the  rich  bourgeoisie, 
to  gain  political  control  of  the  city.  He  did  not  seek  office, 
but  he  was  able,  years  before  his  death,  to  direct  elections 
and  through  obedient  henchmen  to  command  the  poHcy  of 
Florence.  His  wealth  increased  his  political  influence  and 
he  never  scrupled  to  use  in  his  business  as  a  banker  the 
knowledge  he  gained  as  a  politician.  His  power  was  re- 
garded as  beneficent  by  his  friends  and  adherents  and  at 
his  death  he  was  hailed  officially  as  Pater  PatriaB. 

His  son  Piero,  nicknamed  The  Gouty,  survived  him  only 
five  years  and  transmitted  his  wealth  and  power  to  his 
grandsons  Giuliano  and  Lorenzo.  The  young  men  shared 
this  power  undisturbed  for  nine  years  and  then  the  political 
enemies  of  the  Medici  in  Florence  joined  with  the  family  of 
Pope  Sixtus  IV,  whose  plans  for  conquest  were  interrupted 
by  the  foreign  policy  of  Florence,  in  a  conspiracy  to  murder 
them.  The  Pope,  though  he  knew  of  the  conspiracy,  did 
not  approve  the  murder.  Giuliano  was  killed  in  church  but 
Lorenzo  escaped  the  murderers;  the  people  rose  in  his  de- 
fence and  henceforth  he  ruled  the  City  of  Florence  with  a 
tyranny  scarcely  tempered  by  the  fear  of  assassination. 

3 


4  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Foreign  ambassadors  always  consulted  him,  he  controlled 
the  tax  list  and  the  laws  were  seldom  able  to  protect  his 
enemies  against  his  vengeance.  He  held  no  office  and  bore 
no  title  except  that  of  il  Magnifico,  but  he  was  regarded  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  as  Duke  of  Florence.  His  fame 
spread  not  only  beyond  the  walls  of  his  city  but  also  across 
the  Alps  and  at  his  death  in  1494  he  was  the  most  distin- 
guished statesman  in  Italy.  In  addition  he  had  merited  his 
fame  as  a  writer  both  of  prose  and  verse  and  the  most 
discriminating  patron  of  literature  and  the  fine  arts  in  the 
world. 

Lorenzo  had  three  sons.  For  his  second  son  Giovanni 
he  obtained  a  cardinal's  hat,  and  he  left  his  fortune  and 
his  power  to  his  eldest  son  Piero.  But  the  weakness  of 
Piero  and  the  disturbance  caused  by  the  French  invasion  of 
Italy  in  1494  enabled  the  new  democratic  party  to  banish 
the  Medici  and  make  Florence  again  a  republic.  The 
Medici  went  to  Rome,  where  they  remained  for  seventeen 
years,  during  which  Piero  was  drowned. 

In  1512  Pope  Julius  II  formed  the  Holy  League  which 
drove  the  French  from  Italy,  and  a  congress  of  the  League 
decided  that  as  the  Florentine  Republic  had  shown  a  benev- 
olent neutrality  toward  the  French,  it  should  be  overthrown 
and  the  power  of  the  Medici  reestablished.  Cardinal  Gio- 
vanni and  his  younger  brother  Giuliano  were  made  masters 
of  their  native  city  by  Spanish  soldiers.  The  next  year  for- 
tune again  smiled  on  the  Medici.  Cardinal  Giovanni  wag 
elected  Pope  and  took  the  name  of  Leo  X.  The  new  Pope 
was  not  too  much  engrossed  with  the  duties  of  his  office  to 
look  after  the  fortunes  of  his  family.  He  put  Lorenzo,  the 
twenty-one  year  old  son  of  Piero,  in  charge  of  the  Medici 
power  in  Florence.  He  also  gave  the  red  hat  to  Innocenzo 
Cybo,  his  sister's  son  and  to  his  illegitimate  cousin  Giulio 
de'  Medici.  The  Pope's  younger  brother  Giuliano  was 
made  Captain  General  of  the  Church  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  his  weak  health  and  ways  of  living  made  him  unfit 
for  war.   But  as  fate  would  have  it,  the  office  proved  no  sine- 


BIRTH  AND  CHILDHOOD  5 

cure.  Francis  I  ascended  the  throne  of  France  in  January, 
1515,  at  once  renewed  French  claims  to  the  Duchy  of  Milan, 
crossed  the  Alps  at  the  head  of  35,000  men  and  150  guns, 
perhaps  the  finest  army  any  King  of  France  had  ever  led, 
and  beat  the  hitherto  unbeaten  Swiss  mercenaries  at 
Marignano;  a  fight  so  fierce  that  one  of  his  marshals  said 
none  of  the  other  eighteen  pitched  battles  of  his  life  had 
been  more  than  child's  play  beside  it. 

The  forces  which  the  Pope  and  his  vassals  had  been  able 
to  put  in  the  field  had  been  commanded,  not  by  the  titular 
Captain  General  of  the  Church,  but  by  the  young  Lorenzo, 
and  Leo  profited  by  the  alliance  he  was  forced  to  make  with 
the  French  King  to  push  Lorenzo's  fortune.  He  conquered 
for  him  the  Duchy  of  Urbino,  at  an  expense  so  great  that  it 
began  the  bankruptcy  of  the  papal  treasury  which  two 
years  later  gave  one  of  the  occasions  for  the  schism  of 
Teutonic  Christendom  from  the  Universal  Church.  There 
were  indeed  grounds  for  the  sentence  which  condemned 
the  Duke  of  Urbino  to  lose  his  Duchy  as  an  unfaithful 
vassal.  He  had  been  secretly  allied  with  the  French  and 
had  refused  to  march  at  the  command  of  his  overlord. 
Nevertheless,  the  chief  cause  of  Leo's  war  against  Urbino 
was  not  the  ofi"enses  of  the  Duke  but  the  ambition  of  his 
sister-in-law  who  wanted  to  see  a  ducal  coronet  on  her  son's 
head.  The  transaction  has  about  it  something  "very  hate- 
ful and  disgusting."  It  makes  the  impression  (on  a  mod- 
em Roman  Catholic  historian  as  on  contemporary  chroni- 
clers) that  the  Pope's  action  "was  less  concerned  with  giving 
free  course  to  justice  than  with  providing  a  state  for  his 
nephew  to  rule."  ^ 

After  conquering  a  Duchy  for  his  nephew,  Leo  sent  him 
to  France  to  win  an  heiress,  Madeleine  de  la  Tour  d'Au- 
vergne,  and  she  became  the  mother  of  Caterina  de'  Medici. 

To  Caterina's  father  therefore  the  election  of  his  uncle  as 
Pope  brought  a  duchy,  a  rich  bride  and  the  control  of 
Florence.    He  received  because  he  was  the  secular  head  of 

"Paator,  IV,  103. 


6  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

the  family  of  Medici  other  advantages  which  were  the  in- 
herited returns  for  the  patient  and  intelligent  patronage 
given  to  literature  and  the  fine  arts  by  the  members  of  his 
house  from  Cosimo  to  Leo.  Lorenzo  di  Piero  de'  Medici  did 
not  in  his  brief  life  accomplish  the  smallest  thing  worthy  of 
commemoration,  but  few  men  have  had  a  more  striking 
monument  than  either  of  the  two  dedicated  to  him.  Michel 
Angelo  made  him  immortal  as  the  figure  of  Thought  in  the 
Medicean  Chapel.  Machiavelli  dedicated  to  him  the  Prince 
and  in  the  last  chapter  called  upon  him  to  be  a  "new  Moses 
to  redeem  Italy  from  the  barbarians  and  prove  that  the 
ancient  valour  is  not  yet  dead  in  Italian  hearts." 

Caterina  de'  Medici  was  therefore  at  her  birth  a  favorite 
of  fortune.  True  this  distinguished  inheritance  brought  to 
the  child  some  disadvantages.  The  name  of  Medici 
was  known  throughout  the  world  but,  north  of  the  Alps ;  a 
family  whose  wealth  came  from  trade  and  banking,  rather 
than  from  inherited  feudal  estates,  whose  ancestors  had  not 
been  warriors,  but  merchants  who  had  gained  power  only 
by  ecclesiastical  influence  and  municipal  politics,  would  be 
looked  on  askance  as  somewhat  second  rate,  not  at  all  equal 
to  the  collateral  branches  of  a  royal  house:  not  even  on  a 
par  with  the  great  or  the  ancient  families  of  the  feudal 
nobility.  Nevertheless  this  heiress  of  the  "Eredita  di 
Cosimo  de'  Medici  il  Magnifico,"  this  "little  Duchess"  of 
Urbino,  this  "nipota"  of  Leo  X,  was  too  valuable  a  pawn  in 
the  game  of  international  politics  to  fail  of  many  distin- 
guished suitors  for  her  hand.  The  child  was  bom  to  great 
expectations,  but  the  most  sagacious  political  prophet  could 
not  have  foreseen  that  she  would  become  queen  and  regent 
of  one  of  the  greatest  nations  of  the  world;  the  mother  of 
three  kings,  two  queens,  a  sovereign  duke,  and  a  reigning 
duchess.^ 

At  Caterina's  birth  her  father  was  so  ill  that  he  had 
scarcely  left  his  bed  for  five  months.  The  baby  was  imme- 
diately carried  to  him  and,  in  spite  of  some  disappointment 

*  Rel.,  n,  3,  pp.  139,  312. 


BIRTH  AND  CHILDHOOD  7 

that  his  first  born  was  not  a  boy,  he  showed  great  pleasure. 
Three  days  later  she  was  baptized  under  the  name  of 
Caterina,  Maria,  Romola.  In  her  later  life  she  used  only  the 
first  of  these  names  perhaps  because  it  had  been  borne  by 
her  mother.  Twelve  days  after  the  ceremony  the  mother 
died  of  puerperal  fever.  In  a  letter  which  was  dictated  to 
the  Ambassador  of  France  asking  him  to  tell  the  King  this 
news  Lorenzo  wrote  "I  am  in  bed  with  a  little  fever,  catarrh 
and  many  other  bad  symptoms  and  for  my  evil  fortune  there 
has  come  upon  me  in  addition  this  sad  blow  to  lose  my  most 
beloved  wife."  Six  days  later  he  died.  So  far  as  we  can 
judge  from  the  record  of  his  symptoms  which  has  survived 
in  the  letters  of  his  secretary,  the  cause  of  his  death  was 
galloping  consumption  to  whose  contagion  he  was  probably 
rendered  more  susceptible  by  the  licentious  life  which  he 
had  led  in  common  with  most  young  Italian  princes  of  his 
day.i 

The  tendency  to  short  life  noticeable  among  the  males  of 
the  House  of  Medici  since  the  days  of  Cosimo  had  thus 
brought  it  to  the  verge  of  extinction.  Ariosto  struck  by 
this  spectacle  of  a  cradle  between  two  coffins  represents  the 
City  of  Florence  as  saying  "Only  a  branch  shows  a  little 
green  in  its  leaves  and  I  am  divided  between  fear  and  hope 
whether  the  winter  will  leave  it  to  me  or  kill  it."  The  fears 
of  the  poet  were  nearly  realized  a  few  months  later,  for  the 
orphan  became  so  critically  ill  that  her  great  uncle  received 
word  in  Rome  that  she  could  not  live.  The  grandmother 
carried  the  infant  to  Rome  when  she  was  well  enough  to 
travel  and  soon  after  her  arrival  the  Pope  told  the  Venetian 
Ambassador  that  this  "child  of  sorrow"  as  he  called  her 
"with  tears  in  his  eyes,"  was  "a  pretty,  plump,  little  thing." 
The  child  remained  in  Rome  for  nearly  six  years  but 
we  know  nothing  of  her  life  there  except  that  her  great 
uncle  Leo  X,  before  she  was  two  years  old,  thought  seriously 
of  marrying  her  in  the  future  to  her  illegitimate  cousin 
Hippolito  who  was  then  seven.^ 

*  Corsiiii  refutes  older  stories.       •  Baschet,  von  Reumont,  pntd.  263,  264. 


8  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

In  her  seventh  year,  when  her  grandfather*a  cousin 
Clement  VII  had  succeeded  her  uncle  Leo  X  as  Pope, 
Caterina  was  taken  back  to  Florence.  Writmg  about  this 
time  to  the  senate,  the  Venetian  Ambassador  says,  "I  will 
not  remind  your  magnificences  of  the  genealogy  of  the 
family  of  the  Medici  .  .  .  but  I  will  point  out  the  fact  that 
the  said  family  is  extinct  in  the  legitimate  male  line  because 
today  there  are  only  natural  sons,  i.  e..  Pope  Clement,  nat- 
ural son  of  Giuliano  (the  murdered  brother  of  Lorenzo); 
Cardinal  Hippolito,  natural  son  of  Giuliano  (younger  son 
of  Lorenzo) ;  and  Alessandro  (illegitimate  half  brother  of 
Catherine).  There  are  indeed  two  legitimate  women, 
Lucrezia,  sister  of  Leo  X,  now  wife  of  Jacopo  Salviati,  and 
the  Httle  Duchess  Caterina."  ^ 

In  thus  suggesting  the  danger  that  the  name  of  Medici 
might  disappear  because  the  family  consisted  of  women  and 
three  bastards,  two  of  whom  were  priests,  the  writer  entirely 
forgot  the  existence  of  the  little  Cosimo,  who  was  in  the  end 
to  restore  the  fortunes  of  the  family  name  at  Florence  and 
become  the  founder  of  the  line  of  Medici  grand-dukes  of 
Tuscany.  Cosimo  was  the  son  of  Giovanni  delle  Bande 
Nere,  a  descendant  in  the  third  generation  of  a  youngar 
brother  of  old  Cosimo.  Giovanni  was,  when  he  was  kiUed 
by  a  cannon  ball  in  his  27th  year,  the  only  Medici  who  had 
ever  won  distinction  in  arms  and  the  most  famous  Italian 
soldier  of  his  day.  Aretino,  who  witnessed  his  death  and 
wrote  a  celebrated  letter  to  describe  it,  regarded  him  as  the 
possible  pohtical  Messias,  the  longed  for  "Prince"  of 
Machiavelli  who  was  to  banish  and  liberate  his  countrymen 
and  "make  of  Italy  now  a  slave — a  queen."  It  was  natural 
enough  that  the  Venetian  Ambassador  should  overlook  the 
existence  of  little  Cosimo,  the  son  of  this  hero,  for  the  man- 
ager of  the  Medici  affairs,  Clement  VII,  persisted  in  doing 
so:  perhaps  because,  being  himself  in  illegitimate  descent 
from  the  older  line,  he  was  afraid  of  seeming  to  suggest  in 

*Rel.  II,  5,  p.  410. 


BIRTH  AND  CHILDHOOD  9 

any  way  that  a  legitimate  descendant  of  a  cadet  had  any 
place  at  all  in  the  family.^ 

At  all  events,  whatever  his  motive  was,  Clement  VII  did 
concentrate  his  attentions  on  the  little  girl  and  the  two 
illegitimate  little  boys.  Caterina  lived  in  Florence  under 
the  care  of  her  father's  sister,  the  wife  of  Filippo  Strozzi, 
one  of  the  wealthiest  of  the  Florentine  nobles.  Caterina 
always  kept  a  very  grateful  memory  of  her  aunt,  though 
she  lost  her  when  she  was  still  a  small  child,  and  showed 
that  gratitude  in  her  later  years  by  the  favor  she  granted 
to  her  cousins  the  Strozzi  when  they  fled  to  France  as 
refugees.  Hippolito,  now  fourteen,  had  been  sent  to  Flor- 
ence some  months  before  Caterina  and  he  was  in  train- 
ing to  succeed  her  father  as  Magnifico,  the  title  given  by 
the  Medici  themselves  to  that  one  of  their  family  who  as 
head  of  the  house  exercised  their  hereditary  power  in  Flor- 
ence. Caterina's  illegitimate  half-brother,  Alessandro,  a 
few  years  older  than  herself,  had  gone  with  her  to  Florence 
and  probably  at  first  all  three  lived  together  in  the  Medici 
palace.  But  about  a  year  later  we  know  that  Caterina  was 
living  in  a  viUa  near  the  city,  and  her  great  protector  had 
renewed  in  his  own  mind  the  project  of  Leo  X  to  marry  her 
to  Hippolito.  Caterina  was  heiress  to  half  the  fortune  of 
the  Medici.  Leo  X  had  left  the  other  half  to  Clement  VII, 
who  now  thought  of  giving  it  to  Hippolito  and  thus  re- 
establishing the  name,  wealth  and  power  of  the  Medici  in 
Florence.^ 

But  in  this  plan  he  reckoned  without  the  people  of 
Florence.  They  resented  the  fact  that  a  child  had  been 
sent  to  them  as  untitled  rulM*  of  their  city.  In  addition 
the  boy  and  his  mentor,  the  Cardinal  of  Cortona,  had  not 
the  tact  to  cloak  their  dominion.  When  the  councils  of  the 
city  met  to  choose  magistrates  the  Cardinal  of  Cortona  used 
to  send  the  list  of  candidates  to  Rome,  where  Clement  VII 
struck  off  the  names  he  did  not  like  and  the  election  was 

*  See  Pastor,  VH,  Bk.  I. 

'Arch.  Flor.  Strozziane  X,  f.  31,  66;  Rel.  U,  3,  p.  129. 


10  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

made  out  of  the  rest.  Hippolito  also  lacked  that  distin- 
guished courtesy  for  which  his  ancestors  had  once  been 
famous.  He  insisted  upon  preceding  every  one,  claimed 
the  most  obsequious  sort  of  greetings  and,  iq  general,  took 
upon  himself  the  airs  of  a  lord  and  ruler.  The  Florentines 
were  a  very  proud  and  keen-witted  people ;  even  those  who 
were  content  with  the  loss  of  liberty  clung  very  hard  to  the 
last  shows  of  it  and  they  deeply  resented  the  boy's  in- 
capacity, his  tactlessness  and  his  bad  manners.  ^ 

In  April,  1527,  a  sudden  rising  took  place  against  the 
House  of  Medici.  A  crowd  gathered  in  the  streets  crying 
"The  People,  The  People,  Liberty,  Liberty."  They  soon 
increased  to  six  hundred  armed  men,  including  many  of 
the  leading  citizens  of  Florence.  They  seized  the  palace 
of  the  government,  threatened  to  attack  the  Medici  palace 
and  met  with  such  success  that  the  Ambassador  of  Venice 
felt  that  the  power  of  the  Medici  was  almost  finished.  But 
the  Cardinal  of  Cortona  was  finally  able  by  the  use  of  his 
troops  to  overawe  the  revolters,  and,  on  condition  of  a  free 
pardon  to  all  concerned,  the  demonstration  was  quieted.^ 

A  month  later  the  policy  of  Clement  VII,  who  had  been 
trying  to  keep  a  middle  position  between  France  and 
Spain,  brought  upon  Rome  one  of  the  most  terrible  disasters 
of  history.  The  Spanish  army  stormed  the  walls  of  the 
city  and  began  a  sack  whose  horrors  sent  a  thrill  of  dis- 
gust through  the  entire  world.  Clement  VII  took  refuge 
in  the  Castle  of  Saint  Angelo  from  whose  impregnable 
walls  he  watched  the  agony  of  the  holy  city.  As  soon  as 
this  news  reached  Florence  the  revolution  broke  out  again 
and  from  the  very  first  the  Cardinal  of  Cortona  seems  to 
have  recognized  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  resist  it.  He 
began  to  send  out  of  the  city  by  night,  the  most  precious 
possessions  of  the  family,  and  he  finally  concluded  an  agree- 
ment with  the  representatives  of  the  new  government  that 
the  Medici  would  surrender  to  the  people  the  government 

»Rel.  II  (1),  pp.  73,  74;  II,  3,  p.  130. 
'Rel.  II,  3,  p.  52. 


BIRTH  AND  CHILDHOOD  11 

of  Florence,  on  condition  that  no  financial  accounting  should 
be  asked  of  them  and  that  they  could  remain  in  the  city 
as  private  citizens  with  all  their  privileges  confirmed.  In 
spite  of  this  agreement  and  only^  the  day  after  it  was  made, 
the  Cardinal  of  Cortona  and  Hippolito  were  so  strongly 
advised  by  their  friends  to  leave  the  city  that  they  went 
to  Lucca.^ 

A  few  months  later  Niccolo  Capponi,  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  Florence,  proposed  in  full  council  that  Jesus 
Christ  should  be  elected  perpetual  King  of  the  Florentine 
people.  The  motion  was  carried  all  but  unanimously  and 
the  government  coined  ducats  which  had  on  one  side  the 
lily  of  Florence  and  on  the  other  the  cross  surmounted  by 
a  crown  of  thorns  and  surrounded  with  the  motto  "Jesus 
Rex  Noster  et  Deus  Noster." 

The  new  government  thought  it  better  to  hold  the  little 
Caterina  as  a  hostage.  Accordingly  they  sent  Bernardo 
Rinuccini,  a  very  distinguished  citizen,  with  a  band  of 
soldiers  to  bring  the  child  into  the  city  from  the  nearby 
villa  of  Poggia  Cajano,  where  she  had  been  taken  for  refuge. 
By  the  orders  of  the  government  he  confided  her  to  the  care 
of  the  Dominican  nuns  at  the  convent  of  Santa  Lucia. 
The  child's  aunt  resented  this  seizure  of  her  niece,  went 
to  the  convent,  took  her  away  from  the  nuns  and  brought 
her  to  the  Medici  palace.  But  apparently  fearing  that 
the  palace  might  be  attacked  in  some  riot,  she  soon  carried 
her  back  again  to  the  keeping  of  the  nuns.  A  few  months 
later,  by  orders  of  the  government  she  was  transferred  to 
the  convent  of  Santa  Caterina  of  Siena.  That  convent 
being  in  some  danger  of  infection  from  the  plague,  the 
Ambassador  of  France  induced  the  government  to  transfer 
the  young  daughter  of  Madeleine  de  la  Tour  d'Auvergne 
to  the  convent  of  the  Santissima  Annunziata  delle  Murate. 
Five  months  later.  May  1528,  her  aunt  died  and  the  little 
girl  was  left  alone  in  a  city  filled  with  the  enemies  of  her 
house.   The  nuns  must  have  been  very  kind  to  the  friendless 

*Rel.  n,  1,  p.  66. 


12  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

child,  because  in  this  instance  also,  Catherine  retained 
grateful  memories  of  her  childhood's  friends.  Later  in  life 
she  bestowed  a  great  many  favors  upon  the  convent  of  the 
Murate  and  in  the  private  diary  of  one  of  the  sisters,  of 
which  a  fragment  has  survived,  it  is  recorded  that  the  nuns 
were  fond  of  the  little  duchess  because  of  her  friendly  and 
gracious  manners.^ 

A  diligent  search  among  the  papers  of  these  convents 
preserved  in  the  archives  at  Florence,  reveals  no  traces 
of  the  life  of  Caterina  in  them.  That  she  was  kept 
in  gentle  confinement  as  a  prisoner,  or  rather  as  a  hostage, 
under  the  kindly  guardianship  of  the  nuns,  we  know  from 
other  sources.  The  Venetian  Ambassador,  writing  home 
on  the  17th  of  September  1529,  records  "the  council  has 
been  discussing  the  message  brought  from  Rome  by  a  gentle- 
man of  Monsignor  de  Tarbes  to  the  effect  that  the  Pope 
has  no  quarrel  with  them  and  does  not  want  anything  except 
that  they  should  be  obedient  to  the  church  and  restore  to 
His  Holiness  the  property  which  belongs  to  him,  replace  his 
arms  and  surrender  to  him  the  little  duchess,  the  daughter 
of  the  late  Senor  Lorenzo,  who  is  under  guard  in  a  mon- 
astery of  this  city.  But  at  the  suggestion  of  this  gentleman 
the  government  has  decided  to  send  two  ambassadors  to 
the  Pope  to  discuss  these  matters  with  him."  ^ 

This  negotiation  came  to  nothing  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  Clement  VII  expected  that  it  would  come  to  any- 
thing except  to  gain  time  and,  perhaps,  to  recover  from 
the  hands  of  his  enemies,  the  little  duchess.  At  the  end 
of  June,  he  had  made  a  treaty  with  the  Emperor  Charles  V 
by  which  it  was  agreed  that  the  Emperor's  illegitimate 
daughter  Margaret,  married  to  the  illegitimate  half  brother 
of  Caterina,  should  receive  as  a  marriage  portion  the  City 
of  Florence.  Part  of  the  same  imperial  army  which  two 
years  before  had  stormed  and  sacked  the  City  of  Rome, 
now  invested  Florence.    The  inhabitants  defended  them- 

*Baschet,  von  Reumont,  ctd.  126. 
"Eel.  II,  1.  p.  217. 


BIRTH  AND  CHILDHOOD  13 

selves  with  great  courage  for  a  year  and  then,  forced  by 
hunger  which  in  the  end  brought  about  the  sale  in  the  open 
market  of  rats  and  cats  at  high  prices,  they  opened  their 
gates. 

During  this  time  of  heroic  endurance  the  old  partisans 
of  the  Medici  were  naturally  regarded  in  Florence  with  the 
greatest  suspicion;  large  numbers  of  them  were  arrested 
and  thrown  into  prison,  and  one  of  them  who  was  accused 
of  having  acted  as  a  spy  for  the  besiegers,  was  hanged  one 
morning  from  the  balcony  of  the  governmental  palace.  In 
this  suspicion  and  hatred  of  all  friends  or  adherents  of  the 
House  of  Medici,  the  little  Caterina  became  involved. 
Many  of  the  nuns  of  the  convent  in  which  she  was  held  as 
a  hostage,  were  secretly  adherents  of  the  Medici.  They 
were  in  the  habit  of  sending  baskets  containing  food  to 
those  in  prison  and  it  was  discovered  that  on  the  bottom 
of  these  baskets  there  was  formed,  either  in  the  baskets 
themselves  or  by  means  of  flowers,  the  representation  of 
the  Medici  arms  which  had  been  erased  from  all  public 
buildings  in  the  city.  This  discovery  came  like  oil  upon 
flame  and  the  matter  was  at  once  reported  with  much 
excitement  to  the  governing  committee  of  the  city.  Already 
some  of  the  more  extreme  opponents  of  the  Medici  had 
made  the  most  terrible  suggestions  in  regard  to  what  ought 
to  be  done  with  little  Caterina.  One  proposal  was  to  expose 
her  to  associations  which  would  infallibly  corrupt  her 
morals,  with  the  hope  of  so  ruining  her  reputation  that  the 
Pope  could  never  marry  her  to  anyone  who  might  attempt 
to  conquer  the  city  in  her  interest.  This  new  incident 
brought  up  another  suggestion,  that  she  and  other  relatives 
and  chief  adherents  of  the  Medici  should  be  tied  to  the 
walls  in  places  exposed  to  the  cannon  of  the  besiegers.  But 
such  terrific  outbursts  of  that  intense  partisan  hatred  which 
in  the  past  had  brought  upon  Italy  all  her  worst  political 
misfortunes,  were  not  even  considered  by  the  council.  The 
only  step  they  took  was  to  send  a  distinguished  citizen, 


14  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Salvestro  Aldobrandini,  to  transfer  Caterina  from  the  Con- 
vent of  the  Murate  back  to  the  Convent  of  Santa  Lucia.^ 

He  found  the  little  girl  dressed  as  a  nun,  with  her  hair 
cut  short  like  the  sisters,  and  she  flatly  refused  to  go  with 
him,  saying  she  intended  to  be  a  nun  and  remain  her  whole 
life  with  these  beloved  mothers  with  whom  she  was  now 
staying.  It  was  in  vain  that  Salvestro  urged  upon  her  that 
she  would  find  equally  kind  friends  in  Santa  Lucia,  which 
had  been  founded  by  her  family.  The  child  stood  firm  in 
her  refusal  to  go  and  the  sisters  of  the  convent  fell  upon 
their  knees  and  with  tears  called  upon  Heaven  to  help  them 
keep  their  charge.  Salvestro  Aldobrandini  was  unable  to 
produce  any  effect  upon  the  excited  women  and  went  back 
to  the  council  to  report  his  ill  success.  Two  days  later  he 
came  back  again  and  told  the  nuns  that  Caterina  must  go 
with  him.  She  wept  wildly  at  first,  but,  on  Salvestro's 
assurance  that  she  could  come  back  again  in  a  month,  she 
consented  to  be  put  upon  a  mule  and  followed  by  her  maids 
was  taken  to  Santa  Lucia,  whence,  shortly  after  the  sur- 
render of  the  city,  she  was  by  orders  of  Clement  VII  con- 
veyed to  Rome.  A  correspondent  of  her  half-brother  Ales- 
sandro  wrote  to  him  from  Rome  October  13th,  1530,  "The 
Signora  Duchessa  arrived  here  last  evening.  She  has  not 
yet  been  able  to  come  to  the  palace  but  is  lodged  in 
your  house:  she  is  beautiful,  discreet  and  wise  beyond  her 
years."  ^ 

On  the  fifth  of  July,  1531,  Alessandro  entered  Florence 
and  took  possession  of  the  city.  He  had  recently  been 
created  by  the  King  of  Spain  Duke  of  Citta  di  Penna,  a 
duchy  which  consisted  chiefly  of  title,  and  he  did  what  his 
forefathers  had  never  done,  took  the  title  of  Duke  of 
Florence. 

This  preferment  of  Alessandro  to  be  the  visible  ruler 
of  Florence  was  very  much  resented  by  Hippolito,  who  was 
not  consoled  by  the  fact  that  he  had  been  made,  a  year 

*Rel.  II,  1,  pp.  233,  274,  304,  315. 

'Von  Reumont,  Note  43,  Principi  II,  203. 


BIRTH  AND  CHILDHOOD  15 

before,  a  cardinal  and  endowed  with  very  rich  benefices. 
Though  he  took  and  spent  with  great  freedom  the  money 
which  came  to  him  from  his  ecclesiastical  position,  he  sel- 
dom wore  the  robes  of  a  prince  of  the  church,  but  preferred 
to  dress,  as  he  has  been  painted  by  Titian,  in  the  splendid 
costume  of  a  nobleman. 

The  little  Caterina  was  confided  to  the  care  of  her  aunt, 
the  sister  of  Leo  X,  Lucretia  Salviati,  whose  husband,  a 
Florentine  nobleman,  was  one  of  the  Pope's  right-hand  men 
and  very  influential  in  his  councils.  Of  Caterina's  life  at 
Rome  very  few  notices  have  been  found,  nor  is  it  probable 
that,  to  those  outside  of  the  intimate  family  circle,  she 
appeared  a  very  conspicuous  personage,  for  when  she 
arrived  there  she  was  not  yet  twelve  years  old.  She  left 
Rome  to  return  to  Florence  in  the  end  of  April,  1532,  and 
we  have  but  one  account  of  what  she  did  during  the  eighteen 
months  when  she  was  growing  into  the  early  womanhood 
of  an  Italian  princess.  In  the  reports  which  the  returned 
Venetian  Ambassador  Soriano  gave  about  the  family  of 
the  Pope,  he  said : 

"The  httle  Duchess  is  of  a  rather  vivacious  nature  but  shows 
an  amiable  disposition.  She  was  educated  by  the  nuns  of  the 
Convent  of  the  Murate  in  Florence,  ladies  of  holy  life  and  the 
most  excellent  reputation  and  she  has  very  good  manners.  She 
is  small  and  thin,  her  face  is  not  refined  and  she  has  the  big  eyes 
which  belong  to  the  family  of  the  Medici.  The  Duke  Alessandro 
(her  half-brother)  shows  that  he  has  a  good  mind  and  he  has  the 
tact  to  accommodate  himself  better  to  the  nature  and  will  of  the 
Pope  than  the  Cardinal  de'  Medici.  Therefore  His  Holiness  has 
made  it  evident  to  me  that  he  loves  the  Duke  more  than  he 
does  the  Cardinal  and  expects  very  much  more  from  him.  Many 
times  in  conversation  with  me,  he  has  told  me  that  he  intends 
to  make  the  Duke  the  head  of  the  family  of  the  Medici  and  to 
let  him  govern  Florence  as  his  ancestors  have  done.  The  Most 
Reverend  Cardinal  de'  Medici  (Hippolito)  was  twenty  years  old 
on  the  23rd  of  March,  1531.  He  has  a  good  mind  and  has  given 
eome  little  time  to  study  so  that  he  cannot  be  considered,  in 
comparison  with  the  other  Cardinals,  as  ignorant.  He  is  indeed 
of  a  vivacious,  one  might  almost  say  restless,  nature,  but  perhaps 


16  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

it  comes  from  his  youth.  Up  to  now  he  shows  a  very  great 
reluctance  to  being  a  priest  and  the  Pope  said  to  me  with  his  own 
mouth  that  when  the  Cardinal  returned  from  Florence  he  was 
very  unwilling  to  take  holy  orders.  Indeed  at  that  time  the 
Pope  used  to  me  these  very  words,  'He  is  crazy,  the  devil,  he  is 
crazy,  he  doesn't  want  to  be  a  priest.'  Since  then  it  has  developed 
that  he  is  very  envious  of  Duke  Alexander,  because  it  seems  to 
him  that  the  Pope  did  him  a  great  injustice  in  putting  the  Duke 
at  the  head  of  the  government  of  Florence.  He  thought  this 
position  belonged  to  him  because  he  was  older  and  because  he 
does  not  believe  that  he  is  a  bastard  as  the  Duke  is.  But  even 
without  that  consideration  (that  is,  even  if  both  were  bora 
illegitimate)  he  thinks  himself  of  a  better  social  class  than  the 
Duke,  whose  mother  was  a  servant.  In  addition  his  father 
Giuliano  was  Duke  before  Lorenzino,  the  father  of  Alessandro. 
He  also  thinks  that  he  is  more  beloved  in  Florence,  because  his 
father  was  popular  in  the  city  and  Alessandro's  father  was  very 
much  hated.  This  quarrel  between  the  two  nepoti  gives  great 
displeasure  to  the  Pope,  who  is  disgusted  with  the  Cardinal  for 
disturbing  his  plans.  I  have  also  heard  it  whispered  by  some 
that  the  Cardinal  de'  Medici  wants  to  put  off  his  priestly  robes 
and  to  take  as  his  wife  the  little  Duchess,  his  third  cousin,  with 
whom  he  lives  on  the  best  possible  terms  and  is  also  very  much 
loved  by  her.  Indeed  there  is  no  other  in  whom  she  confides  so 
much  or  whose  counsel  she  is  so  apt  to  seek  about  her  wishes 
and  desires,  as  the  said  Cardinal.  The  Cardinal  is  also  very 
discontented  with  the  Pope  because  he  has  not  immediately  paid 
his  debts  and  will  not  give  him  the  large  allowance  he  desires. 
All  three  of  these  young  people  unite  in  a  common  hatred  of  their 
uncle  by  marriage,  Jacopo  Salviati.  This  hate  is  so  vehement 
that  there  is  danger  that  some  day  he  may  lose  his  life,  and  this 
last  carnival  the  said  Cardinal  came  very  near  killing  him  with 
his  own  hand.  The  cause  of  his  hate  is  that  the  Cardinal  and 
the  others  think  that  Salviati  controls  the  Pope  in  all  things  and 
persuades  him  to  keep  a  tight  hand  on  the  purse  strings  and  not 
to  give  them  money  according  to  their  appetite  for  spending  and 
squandering."  ^ 

'Bel.  n,  3,  p.  280. 


CHAPTER  II 

MARRIAGE 

Although  the  little  Duchess  lived  a  retired  life  whose 
secrets  were  known  only  to  those  who  had  the  chance  of 
hearing  the  gossip  of  the  most  intimate  circles  of  the 
Vatican,  she  was  by  force  of  circumstances  a  sort  of 
international  figure  and  the  threads  of  diplomacy  were 
already  connecting  her  with  the  affairs  of  the  great  world. 
If  her  cousin  Hippolito  ever  really  wanted  to  put  off  his 
cardinal's  robes  and  marry  her,  and  if  her  affection  ever 
turned  towards  him,  as  the  Venetian  Ambassador  said,  she 
never  had  a  chance  of  following  the  dictates  of  her  heart. 
She  already  had  had  many  suitors  for  her  hand,  who  cared 
nothing  for  her  homely  little  person  and  very  much  for  her 
dowry  and  the  political  advantages  which  might  come  from 
marrying  her. 

The  politics  of  Italy  and  indeed  the  politics  of  the  entire 
world,  depended  upon  the  rivalry  between  the  Emperor 
Charles  V  (who  was  also  the  King  of  Spain)  and  Francis  I, 
King  of  France.  In  this  conflict  between  the  Hapsburgs 
and  the  Valois,  Clement  VII  tried  to  hold  a  middle  position 
and  to  sell  his  alliance  to  the  highest  bidder.  He  began 
his  pontificate  with  a  feeling  of  great  dissatisfaction  with 
the  King  of  France  because  in  the  conclave  the  cardinals 
who  acted  in  the  French  interest  had  very  much  opposed 
his  election  and,  in  addition,  the  French  had  sympathized 
with  the  republican  party  which  drove  the  Medici  from 
Florence.  If  he  seemed  later  to  enter  into  a  close  alUance 
with  the  French,  it  was,  as  the  Venetian  Ambassador  Fos- 
cari  wrote  in  May,  1526,  not  because  he  liked  them,  but  for 
his  own  gain  and  for  the  gain  of  Italy.  That  alliance  had 
brought  upon  him  the  terrible  disaster  of  the  storming  of 

17 


18  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Rome  by  the  imperial  army,  and  the  consequent  loss  of 
the  family  dominion  in  Florence.  Then,  as  we  have  seen, 
Clement  turned  and  made  terms  with  his  conqueror  and 
again  it  was  the  Spanish  arms  which  restored  the  Medici 
to  Florence. 

But  Clement  was  a  man  who  always  wanted  two  strings 
to  his  bow,  and  the  following  undated  letter  belongs  to 
this  time: 

"Holy  Father: 

"I  have  received  by  the  Abbott  of  Negres,  the  bearer  of  this, 
the  letter  which  it  has  pleased  your  Holiness  to  write  to  me  with 
your  own  hand  .  .  .  concerning  the  marriage  of  my  son  the 
Duke  of  Orleans  and  of  my  cousin  ^  the  Duchess  of  Urbino  your 
niece,  as  also  of  the  good  feeling  between  us  which  has  been  and 
is  a  very  singular  pleasure  and  contentment  to  me.  Thanking 
you  with  a  very  good  heart,  Most  Holy  Father,  for  the  good  and 
honest  proposals  which  they  have  laid  before  me  on  your  part, 
by  which  I  have  recognized  and  recognize  more  and  more  the 
love  and  alffection  which  your  said  Holiness  has  for  me,  which 
you  can  believe  is  no  less  on  our  side  than  it  is  on  yours  .  .  . 
and  inasmuch.  Most  Holy  Father,  as  upon  all  this  I  have  declared 
to  the  bearer  .  .  .  my  final  and  last  resolution  ...  it  seems  to 
me  that  there  is  no  need  of  writing  to  you  a  longer  letter. 
Leaving  what  remains  to  be  said  to  him  and  praying  God  to 
give  to  your  Holiness  as  good  and  long  a  life  as  I  desire  for  you, 
"Your  humble  and  devoted  son, 

"Francis."  ^ 

As  he  had  arranged  a  Spanish  marriage  for  Alessandro, 
Clement  was  now  inclined  to  look  in  the  direction  of  France 
for  the  marriage  of  Caterina  to  the  second  son  of  Francis  I. 
This  plan  was  very  much  opposed  by  Jacopo  Salviati  and 
much  more  by  his  wife  Lucretia,  who  became  even  violent 
in  arguing  against  it,  perhaps,  as  the  Venetian  Ambassador 
suggests,  because  her  husband  was  inclined  to  the  imperial 
side,  or  perhaps  because  she  felt  that  the  blood  of  the  Medici 
was  not  really  equal  to  that  of  the  legitimate  son  of  a  king. 

*  The  King  addressed  a  young  noble  as  "cousin";  an  older  one  often  aa 
"uncle." 

'Arch.  Vat.  Principi  A.  I,  7,  p.  12. 


MARRIAGE  19 

If  she  had  this  feeling,  she  imitated  the  founder  of  the 
house,  Cosimo,  who  was  never  willing  to  "make  a  marriage 
alliance  for  his  children  with  the  great  ones  of  the  earth, 
although  he  had  offers  of  that  kind  from  the  King  of 
Naples."  1 

The  idea  of  this  French  match  had  been  suggested  to 
Clement  within  four  months  after  he  had  ascended  the 
pontifical  throne,  at  a  time  when  Caterina  was  only  six 
years  old.  Francis  I,  who  aspired  to  be,  and  indeed  seemed 
to  be,  the  dominant  figure  in  Italy,  had  then  offered  Cle- 
ment VII  to  make  Hippolito  King  of  Naples  and  to  marry 
Caterina  to  his  second  son,  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  and  make 
him  Duke  of  Milan.  Since  that  time  the  child's  hand  had 
been  sought  by  a  very  large  number  of  suitors,  the  Prince 
of  Ferrara,  the  King  of  Scotland,  James  V,  the  Duke  of 
Vaudemont  (a  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Lorraine),  the  Duke 
of  Richmond  (the  natural  son  of  Henry  VIII  of  England), 
the  Duke  of  Mantua,  the  heir  apparent  of  the  restored  Duke 
of  Urbino  and  the  Duke  of  Milan.^ 

The  French  marriage  had  been  pushed  by  Caterina's 
uncle,  the  Duke  of  Albany.  He  came  to  Rome  in  Novem- 
ber, 1530,  bringing  with  him  costly  gifts  for  Caterina, 
"jewels,  a  bracelet  and  other  articles  of  adornment  to  the 
value  of  10,000  ducats  and  besides  he  gave  her  three  most 
beautiful  Achinese  with  the  very  richest  sort  of  equipment 
fine  enough  for  any  great  queen  who  lived."  At  this  time 
she  was  described  in  a  letter  of  the  ambassador  of  the  Duke 
of  Milan  as  follows:  "I  have  seen  her  twice  on  horseback, 
but  not  sufficiently  well  to  give  a  complete  judgment  about 
her.  She  seems  to  me  rather  large  for  her  age,  fairly  good 
looking  without  the  help  of  any  cosmetic,  a  blonde  with  a 
rather  stout  face.  But  she  appears  very  young  and  I  do 
not  believe  that  she  can  be  called  or  considered  a  woman 
for  a  year  and  a  half  longer.  It  is  said  that  she  has  good 
feelings  and  a  very  acute  and  adroit  mind  for  her  age.   She 

*  Rel.  II,  3,  p.  303. 

*Arch.  M.  ctd.  Baschet,  von  Reumont. 


20  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

lives  in  the  house  of  Duke  Alessandro.  When  she  rides 
abroad  she  is  escorted  by  the  pages  of  the  Duke  with  his 
war  horses  and  by  other  gentlemen  and  also  by  the  Bishop 
of  Forli,  Major-Domo  of  the  Cardinal  de'  Medici,  who  ac- 
companies her  now  that  the  Bishop  Tornaboni,  who  con- 
ducted her  from  Florence  and  is  so  far  as  I  hear  really  in 
charge  of  her,  happens  to  be  unwell.  Three  Florentine 
matrons  of  mature  age  also  ride  out  with  her."  ^ 

The  dowry  demanded  of  the  Pope  by  the  Duke  of 
Albany  in  the  name  of  the  King  of  France  was  exorbitant. 
What  was  actually  put  into  the  marriage  contract  was  quite 
moderate,  130,000  ecus.  In  return  for  this,  Caterina  re- 
nounced her  rights  upon  her  paternal  inheritance.  The 
King  agreed  to  give  his  son  80,000  ecus  of  his  maternal 
inheritance  and  the  Duchy  of  Orleans  with  a  guaranteed 
income  of  50,000  livres  a  year.  Ten  thousand  of  this  and 
the  palace  of  Gien  near  the  river  Loire  completely  and 
properly  furnished,  was  to  be  settled  on  the  bride.  But, 
although  the  dowry  was  moderate,  certain  secret  articles 
appended  to  the  contract  promised  all  the  King  could  ask. 
The  Pope  is  to  give  "The  cities  of  Pisa,  Livomo,  Reggie 
and  Modena  to  his  said  niece  and  consequently  to  her  future 
husband."  To  this  Parma  is  to  be  added.  The  Pope  prom- 
ises also  to  help  Francis  recover  the  Duchy  of  Milan  and  the 
Lordship  of  Genoa.  And  in  addition  he  promises  whenever 
the  Duchess  wishes  to  recover  Urbino  "to  give  aid  to  her 
future  husband."  This  contract  was  made  in  1531,  but  it 
was  understood  that  the  marriage  was  to  be  delayed.  It 
was  the  sort  of  marriage  engagement  among  princes  which 
was  very  easily  broken,  but  the  interests  of  both  Francis 
and  Clement  kept  this  firm.  None  of  the  secret  articles  of 
the  contract  were  ever  fulfilled.  How  the  Pope  reconciled 
their  existence  with  the  article  of  his  agreement  with 
Charles  V  made  at  Bologna  two  years  later,  that  in  case  of 
any  agreement  about  a  marriage  between  his  niece  Caterina 
and  a  son  of  the  King  of  France,  he  would  use  his  good 

*Baschet,  von  Reumont,  App.  282,  283. 


MARRIAGE  21 

offices  to  see  that  the  King  of  France  would  keep  the  general 
peace  without  "stirring  up  intrigues  to  disturb  Italy,"  it  is 
hard  to  understand.^ 

It  was  finally  arranged  that  the  marriage  should  take 
place  at  Nice.  Meantime  Caterina  was  sent  back  to  Flor- 
ence and  the  Pope  told  the  English  Ambassador  he  was 
sending  her  "to  avoid  the  summer  heat  of  Rome."  ^ 

In  Florence  Caterina  lived  under  the  care  of  her  aunt 
Maria  Salviati  de'  Medici,  widow  of  Giovanni  delle  Bande 
Nere,  and  the  following  letter  shows  some  of  the  difficulties 
the  Pope  met  in  making  arrangements  for  the  journey  of 
his  niece  to  France.  It  is  from  Jacopo  Salviati  to  his 
daughter  Maria: 

"I  have  two  letters  in  answer  to  my  single  letter  about  your 
journey  with  the  Duchess  which  do  not  please  me  at  all,  nor 
does  it  seem  to  me  that  they  contain  that  good  sense  which  I 
had  persuaded  myself  you  possessed.  Because  it  does  not  seem 
to  me,  when  you  have  been  asked  by  His  Holiness  to  go,  that 
it's  any  of  your  part  to  lay  down  conditions  under  which  you 
will  be  willing  to  go  and  the  money  which  you  think  he  ought 
to  spend.  It  seems  to  me  that  it's  your  duty  to  go  anyhow  as 
well  furnished  as  you  can,  although  in  fact  you  don't  lack  any- 
thing, and  let  him  think  about  what  he  wants  to  give  you, 
remembering  that  the  more  simply  you  go,  so  much  the  more  you 
will  be  esteemed  by  everyone,  because  that  is  what's  fitting  to 
the  station  in  life  in  which  you  find  yourself.  ...  I  am  aston- 
ished that,  since  the  entire  fortune  of  Cosimo  (her  son)  depends 
upon  his  Holiness,  you  don't  know  for  yourself  what  you  ought 
to  do.  Apply  yourself  in  the  best  way  you  can  to  doing  what 
you're  asked  to  do  .  .  .  because  that's  the  best  thing  for  the 
interests  of  Cosimo. 

"And  you  would  do  well  to  act  in  such  a  way  that  I  don't  have 
to  write  so  many  times  and  still  don't  get  what  I  want  done, 
because  words  are  not  enough  and  I  cannot  be  satisfied  with  them. 

"Nee  plura.    Vale,  Roma  2  Augustii  1533. 

"Jacopus  Salviati."  * 

Early  in  the  month  of  August,  1533,  the  work  of  pre- 
paring the  trousseau  was  going  actively  forward  and  the 

*  Letts.  X,  478,  Granvelle  (1). 
•Cal.  Vcn.  29  App.  1532. 
•Arch.  Florence,  5922,  p.  189. 


22  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Duchess  of  Camerino  wrote  to  the  Marchioness  of  Mantua 
that  she  has  arrived  in  Florence  in  order  to  accompany 
Caterina  to  France  by  the  order  of  the  Pope.    She  finds 
her  "entirely  unfurnished  in  all  things  that  are  necessary 
.  .  .  and  because  there  are  no  artisans  here  who  know  how 
to  do  embroidery  of  the  right  sort,  we  are  forced  to  send 
to  your  part  of  the  country  two  dresses  and  two  petticoats 
to  have  them  embroidered.    I  have  become  willing  to  be 
guilty  of  the  rude  presumption  of  addressing  this  package 
to  your  Excellency  because  I  know  that  you  are  so  courteous 
and  polite  that  you  will  pardon  me  and  so  I  send  the  said 
dresses  and  petticoats  begging  you  to  do  me  the  kindness 
to  cause  them  to  be  given  to  some  good  master  who  will 
embroider  them  according  to  the  accompanying  pattern, 
and  I  send  also  three  pounds  of  gold,  two  pounds  of  silver 
and  two  pounds  of  silk.    If  by  any  chance  these  are  not 
enough  for  such  work,  I  beg  your  Excellency  to  have  the 
goodness  to  let  me  know  and  I  will  send  more.    If  by  any 
chance  there  is  also  in  Mantua  some  good  piece  of  work 
of  black  silk  or  of  crimson  and  gold,  I  beg  that  your  Excel- 
lency will  do  me  the  kindness  to  cause  it  to  be  given  to  the 
bearer  of  this  letter,  who  has  money  to  pay  for  everything. 
These  are  to  be  used  for  bedcoverings  and  curtains.    And 
I  hope  your  Excellency  will  be  so  courteous  as  to  forgive  me 
for  being  so  presumptuous,  because,  as  I  have  said,  your 
great  courtesy  and  the  obligation  under  which  I  am  to  your 
Excellency  are  the  reasons  for  it  and  so  most  reverently 
I  kiss  your  hand."  ^ 

The  first  of  September,  1533,  Caterina  left  Florence 
accompanied  by  Maria  Salviati  de'  Medici  and  Caterina 
Cybo,  Duchess  of  Camerino,  and  escorted  by  a  number  of 
her  relatives  among  the  Florentine  nobility.  She  traveled 
by  way  of  Pistoia  to  Spezia,  where  she  spent  a  day  in  the 
best  palazzo  of  the  town  belonging  to  the  Biassi.  Her 
uncle,  the  Duke  of  Albany,  was  waiting  for  her  with  a  fleet 
of  twenty-seven  ships.    She  embarked  on  the  royal  galley, 

*Baschet,  von  Reumont,  pntd.  293. 


MARRIAGE  23 

a  magnificent  boat  constructed  at  enormous  expense.  The 
state  salon  extended  from  the  mammast  to  the  rudder, 
covered  with  the  richest  crimson  damask  strewn  with  golden 
lilies  trailing  down  profusely  in  long  folds  almost  to  the  sea. 
Around  the  stem  were  sculptures  in  high  relief,  gold  on  a 
black  ground,  on  the  gilded  "freccia"  a  lantern  of  poHshed 
metal  shone.  The  awnings  were  of  purple  embroidered: 
the  rooms  hung  with  silk  and  cloth  of  gold.  The  rowing 
benches  were  chained  to  the  sides  with  silver  chains  and  the 
crew  of  three  hundred  rowers  were  dressed  in  damascened 
satin  in  the  royal  colors  of  red  and  yellow.^ 

The  fleet  carried  her  to  Nice,  where,  early  the  next 
month,  she  was  joined  by  Pope  Clement  VII  with  a  small 
but  gorgeous  train  of  thirteen  Cardinals,  whose  pages  were 
dressed  in  coats  of  green  velvet  made  in  the  Turkish  fashion 
and  carried  bows.^  He  brought  with  him  a  large  stock  of 
costly  presents  for  various  people  at  the  French  Court. 
The  marriage  ceremonies  were  completed  at  Marseille  on 
the  twenty-eighth  of  October,  1533,  and  at  the  age  of 
fourteen  years  and  six  months  Caterina  de'  Medici  became 
the  wife  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans. 

The  nuptial  benediction  had  been  the  culmination  of  a 
splendid  series  of  festivals  and  feasts  which  lasted  for  thirty- 
four  days.  At  the  crowning  ceremony  Caterina  wore  a  dress 
of  brocade  with  a  cloak  of  dark  blue  velvet  lined  with  ermine 
in  ducal  fashion.  On  her  head  she  wore  a  crown  and  coif 
"worth  a  kingdom."  The  Queen  was  so  richly  dressed  that 
it  was  impossible  "to  tell  the  colour  of  her  robe  for  the 
jewels  which  covered  it."  Catherine  probably  wore  some  of 
the  jewelry  sent  as  part  of  her  dot  by  Clement  VII.  It 
included  a  belt  of  gold  with  eight  great  balas  rubies  and  a 
diamond  in  the  middle,  a  pendant  set  with  a  great  diamond, 
ruby  and  emerald,  a  string  of  eighty  pearls,  a  big  diamond 
set  in  a  ring,  a  valuable  emerald  ring  and  a  ruby  ring,  a  rose 

*Mazzini,  11,  10. 

'Baschet,  von  Reumont,  295. 


24  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

of  twenty  diamonds  and  other  jewelry;  the  whole  of  the 
value  of  twenty-seven  thousand  gold  scudi.^ 

The  young  husband  was  thirteen  days  older  than  the 
bride,  of  a  melancholy  disposition,  but  considered  very  wise 
for  his  age.  The  match  was  exceedingly  unpopular,  because 
people  thought  that  this  daughter  of  rich  bankers  whose 
relatives  had  become  Popes  was  not  a  match  for  the  son  of 
a  prince  and  the  general  impression  was  that  Francis  had 
been  cheated  in  the  matter  of  her  dowry,  which  the  courtiers 
did  not  think  large  enough  for  the  heiress  of  the  great 
Medici  fortune.  Catherine  had  to  the  full  that  exaggerated 
morbid  pride  which  was  so  characteristic  of  all  the  men  and 
women  of  the  Italian  Renascence.  The  sometimes  badly 
concealed  contempt  of  the  great  lords  and  ladies  of  the  court 
who  looked  down  upon  her  as  a  merchant's  daughter  married 
for  her  money,  whose  fortune  had  not  turned  out  as  large  as 
it  was  expected  to  be,  must  have  been  very  hard  to  bear 
for  the  young  girl  who  had  always  been  a  person  of  the 
greatest  importance  in  any  circle  where  she  had  previously 
lived.  But  the  personal  tact  which  seems  to  have  been  her 
strongest  native  quality  stood  her  now  in  good  stead.  The 
Venetian  Ambassador  writes  of  her,  "although  most  un- 
popular, she  shows  herself  exceedingly  submissive  and  the 
King,  her  husband,  the  Dauphin  (her  husband's  older 
brother)  and  the  other  royal  brothers  show  signs  of  being 
very  fond  of  her."  ^ 

The  girl  bride  and  her  boy  husband  were  really  not  of 
enough  importance  to  be  often  mentioned  in  correspondence 
from  the  court.  And  therefore,  for  any  knowledge  of  what 
Catherine  was  at  this  time  in  her  life,  we  are  thrown  back 
entirely  upon  her  own  correspondence.  Unfortunately  very 
few  of  her  letters  of  these  years  have  survived.  Mr.  de  la 
Ferriere  has  printed  five  written  before  her  seventeenth 
year,  when  the  sudden  death  of  the  Dauphin  made  her 
husband  heir  to  the  throne  and  Catherine  the  prospective 

*Baflchet,  von  Reumont,  pntd.  App.  321. 
»Rel.  I,  1,  p.  191. 


MARRIAGE  25 

queen  of  France.  Four  more  letters  of  thi«  early  period 
previously  unprinted  are  printed  in  this  work.  Of  these 
nine  letters  only  the  two  which  follow  are  written  in  her 
own  hand.  Two  sent  before  her  marriage  to  the  Duchess 
of  Savoy  and  the  King  of  France  are  dictated  notes  of 
ceremony.  Of  the  three  addressed  to  her  uncle,  the  Duke 
of  Albany,  two  are  formal  letters  of  information  and  in- 
quiry, the  real  message  in  each  case  being  confided,  as  was 
so  often  done  in  those  days,  to  the  bearer  of  the  letter. 
There  is  a  touch  in  the  third  letter  to  her  uncle  which  sug- 
gests that  this  young  girl,  who  had  been  treated  as  a  pawn 
on  the  political  chessboard  ever  since  her  birth,  had  not 
been  deprived  by  that  atmosphere  of  all  natural  gayety. 
She  tells  her  uncle  that  she  has  heard  that  one  of  the  cap- 
tains of  the  ships  he  brought  with  him  has  a  tambourinist 
who  plays  very  well  the  French  dances  and  she  begs  him 
to  do  her  the  great  pleasure  of  sending  this  musician  in 
order  that  she  may  have  him  with  her.^ 

The  two  letters  written  with  her  own  hand  are  interest- 
ing as  showing  that,  at  the  time  of  her  marriage,  Catherine 
was  a  badly  educated  young  girl  who  had  very  little  to  say 
and  did  not  know  very  well  how  to  say  it.  Within  a  few 
months  of  her  marriage,  she  wrote  to  her  aunt  Maria  Sal- 
viati  de'  Medici: 

"My  Cousin: 

"This  letter  is  only  to  send  you  some  news  of  myself  and 
to  tell  you  again  that  it's  a  long  while  since  I  have  had  any  news 
of  you,  which  makes  me  wonder  because  I  have  written  you  letter 
after  letter  and  have  never  had  a  reply,  which  causes  me  to 
wonder. 

"I  beg  you  that  the  things  which  were  left  to  be  done  when 
I  came  away,  that  if  they  are  finished  you  will  be  good  enough 
to  send  them  to  me  by  some  trusted  person  and  to  send  me  a 
list  of  what  they  cost  and  also  the  price  of  the  other  things  which 
you  sent  to  me  a  little  while  ago  because  I  have  lost  the  other 
bill  which  you  sent  to  me  and  also  I  beg  you  that  if  the  collars 
which  I  was  having  made  at  Mantua  that  if  they  are  done  that 

*  Letts.  I,  p.  1. 


26  CATEERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

you  will  send  them  to  me  together  with  the  other  things.  Also 
that  you  will  have  made  for  me  a  pair  of  large  sleeves  full  of  em- 
broidery and  that  they  shall  be  embroidered  in  black  silk  and 
gold  and  send  me  word  with  the  bill  for  the  other  things  how 
much  they  will  cost.  No  more  at  present.  I  recommend  myself 
to  you.  From  Solcile  the  seventh  of  October."  [On  the  back 
of  the  sheet  is  written:]  "I  have  forgotten  to  tell  you  that  I  beg 
that  you  will  send  me  all  these  as  soon  as  it's  possible  for  you 
to  do  it  and  again  I  recommend  myself  to  you. 

"your  good  cousin, 

"Cateeine."  ' 


A  second  letter  of  the  young  bride  was  addressed  to 
Clement  VII: 

"Most  Holy  Fatheb: 

"This  letter  is  only  to  let  your  Holiness  know  that  I  am  well 
and  in  good  spirits  and  very  well  satisfied  and  I  beg  that  you  will 
keep  me  in  memory  as  you  always  have  done  and  some  time  do 
me  the  favor  to  have  someone  write  to  me  because  I  do  not 
desire  anything  else  except  to  hear  that  your  Holiness  is  well. 
No  more  now  to  your  Holiness.  I  humbly  recommend  myself 
and  my  Lord  of  Orleans  [her  husband]  recommends  himself 
humbly  to  your  Holiness  and  humbly  we  kiss  your  feet.  From 
Paris  on  the  22nd  day  of  February,  1534.  Your  Holiness'  most 
devoted  daughter, 

"Caterinb."  * 

Another  letter  of  this  period  was  written  to  her  illegiti- 
mate half-brother,  Duke  Alessandro  of  Florence;  the  only 
one  written  to  him  which  has  survived.  It  was  a  formal 
note  dictated  to  a  secretary  and  the  real  message  was  con- 
fided to  the  courier  Messire  Hubaldine.  This  is  signed 
"Your  good  sister,  Caterine."  ^ 

Another  letter  to  Clement  which  Catherine  dictated  to 
a  secretary  four  months  after  her  marriage  seems  to  be  a 
little  illuminative  of  her  character  and  conduct: 

*  Arch.  Florence,  Med.  5922,  p.  197. 

•Arch.  Vat.  Principi  I,  8,  p.  227. 
'Arch.  Florence,  Med.  4726,  p.  11. 


MARRIAGE  27 

"Very  Holy  Father  :   Very  warmly  and  as  humbly  as  I  can  I 
recommend  myself  to  your  Holiness. 

"Monseigneur  the  King  is  about  to  write  to  you  in  favor  of 
Master  Francois  Vohue,  Abbe  of  Cernay,  Dean  of  Tours,  Grand 
Provost  of  Normandy  in  the  Church  of  Chartres,  in  the  hope  that 
the  good  pleasure  of  your  Holiness  may  be  to  consent  that  he 
should  remain  and  be  perpetual  and  irrevocable  coadjutor,  both 
in  temporal  and  spiritual  affairs,  of  the  bishopric  of  Saint  Malo, 
whose  Bishop,  uncle  of  the  said  Vohue,  has  asked  this  from  my 
said  lord  the  King,  who  has  granted  it  to  him  as  you  will  hear 
more  amply  by  his  said  letter.  This  Vohue  has  a  brother  General 
of  Finance  and  both  of  them  are  cousins-german  of  my  cousin 
Monsieur  the  Legate,  and  they  are  great  supporters  and  friends 
of  Monsieur  the  Grand  Master.  Both  of  them  are  personages 
from  whom  Monseigneur  [her  husband]  and  I,  not  only  now 
but  in  the  future,  can  expect  very  great  services  not  only  from 
them  but  also  by  the  favor  of  their  supporters  and  friends,  of 
whom  they  have  an  infinite  number  in  this  kingdom.  For  this 
reason,  Very  Holy  Father,  I  very  humbly  beg  your  Holiness 
that  for  my  sake  you  will  treat  the  said  Vohue  so  graciously  in 
the  matter  of  the  necessary  papers  to  be  sent,  that  he  and  his 
aforesaid  brother  and  relatives,  who  have  begged  me  to  intervene 
in  this  affair,  may  be  able  to  recognize  by  the  results  that  our 
present  letters  have  been  very  valuable  .to  them,  which  will  do 
me  a  great  favor  and  put  me  under  more  and  more  obligation 
to  your  Holiness. 

"Very  Holy  Father,  I  pray  the  Creator  that  it  may  be  His 
will  to  keep  you  a  long  while  in  health  and  prosperity  for  the 
good  guidance  and  government  of  our  Holy  Mother  Church. 
Written  at  Paris  the  23rd  day  of  February,  1533. 

"Your  most  humble  servant, 

"Caterine."  * 

This  letter  shows  that  the  young  bride  threw  herself  with 
the  utmost  energy,  from  the  very  beginning,  into  the  in- 
trigues of  the  French  Court.  The  tendency  on  the  part  of 
powerful  personalities  to  build  up  a  faction  by  the  use  of 
influence  in  the  distribution  of  patronage  had  long  been 
dominant  there.  The  zest  in  the  accumulation  and  the  use 
of  political  power  which  afterwards  became  her  dominant 
passion,  Catiierine  thus  displays  at  the  very  beginning  of 

»Arch.  Vat.  Principi,  I,  8,  p.  227. 


28  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

her  life.  During  her  lifetime  she  wrote  hundreds  of  letters 
like  this.  Her  influence  was  the  cheapest  coin  she  could 
use  to  reward  old  adherents  or  to  make  new  ones  and  she 
found  an  enormous  pleasure  in  using  it.  She  was  always 
anxious  to  do  a  favor,  even  if  it  was  only  the  favor  of  an 
introduction  or  a  recommendatory  letter.  This  activity  was 
not  without  motives  of  kindness,  but  her  desire  to  let  the 
recipient  of  this  requested  favor  know  that  her  intercession 
had  helped  him,  is  typical  of  almost  all  the  letters  of  this 
sort. 

The  death  of  the  Dauphin  which  made  the  seventeen- 
year-old  daughter  of  Florentine  bankers  a  prospective  queen 
of  France,  was  very  sudden.  On  the  12th  of  August,  1536, 
he  died,  probably  of  pleurisy.  But  the  following  document, 
which  was  extensively  published,  shows  what  was  thought 
of  the  death  at  the  time: 

"Lyons,  September  6th  1536. 

"Sentence  to  be  torn  by  horses  of  Count  Sebastian  de  Monte- 
cucuUi  for  having  plotted  to  poison  the  King  and  having  suc- 
ceeded in  poisoning  the  oldest  son  of  the  King  with  arsenic 
powder  put  by  him  into  a  vase  of  red  clay  in  the  Maison  de  Plat 
at  Lyons."  ^ 

The  imagination  of  that  generation  and  of  succeeding 
generations  was  obsessed  with  the  fear  of  poison.  For  a 
hundred  years  it  was  hardly  possible  for  a  prominent  person 
to  die  off  the  battlefield  without  the  suggestion  being  made 
that  hate  or  interest  had  secretly  brought  about  his  death. 
Charles  V  about  three  years  before  had  suspected  Henry 
VIII  of  a  design  to  poison  his  wife.  Queen  Katherine.  He 
now  in  turn  was  to  feel  the  sting  of  slander.  The  Count 
of  MontecucuUi  under  torture  confessed;  as  all  but  a  very 
few  men  always  did  confess  under  torture  anything  they 
were  urged  to  confess.  He  said  he  had  been  sent  to  France 
by  two  of  the  chief  counsellors  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V 
to  poison  the  King  and  his  eldest  son.    The  accusation, 

»B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3952  f.  150. 


MARRIAGE  29 

thoroughly  believed  in  France/  was  considered  serious 
enough  to  deserve  refutation  in  a  rather  long  document 
published  under  the  form  of  a  private  letter  supposedly 
written  by  some  one  at  the  Imperial  Court  to  a  friend 
abroad.    This  begins: 

"I  have  received  your  letters  by  which  you  give  me  word  of 
the  trial  in  France  of  an  Italian  accused  of  having  poisoned  the 
late  Dauphin  and  of  the  rumor  the  King  his  father  ...  is  cir- 
culating .  .  .  that  the  poisoning  was  brought  about  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  Emperor.  I  am  astonished  that  you  should 
think  such  a  dishonest  and  wicked  pubUcation,  sane.  You 
know  how  the  said  King  of  France  in  order  to  avenge  the  shame 
of  having  been  conquered  by  the  Emperor,  keeps  all  Christendom 
in  strife  and  has  even  joined  himself  to  the  Turks  and  other 
infidels.  ...  I  hold  that  all  this  is  false  and  published  broadcast 
throughout  all  Christendom  in  order  that  the  King  of  France  .  .  . 
may  have  ostensible  cause  for  continuing  his  enmity  and  war 
.  .  .  and  for  refusing  with  this  notable  reason,  every  suggestion 
of  peace  and  be  able  to  excuse  himself  to  all  Christendom  for 
doing  so." 

^Granvelle  (1),  II,  12,  500.    Rel.  I,  1,  p.  204. 


CHAPTER  III 

WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE 

Even  before  the  death  of  his  brother,  Henry  had  shown 
signs  of  a  strong  personal  ambition.  He  had  suggested 
claims  in  his  wife's  name  to  the  Duchy  of  Florence  and 
Urbino  and  had  openly  asserted,  in  letters  written  by  his 
own  hand,  his  claim  to  the  Duchy  of  Milan.^  He  was  now 
heir  to  the  throne  of  France  and  his  ambition  might  take 
a  wider  scope.  He  asked  and  obtained  leave  to  go  to  the 
entrenched  camp  skillfully  situated  at  the  junction  of  the 
Rhone  and  the  Durance;  at  the  meeting  comers  of  the  three 
provinces  of  Languedoc,  Dauphiny  and  Provence.  Here, 
with  a  powerful  army  of  more  than  thirty  thousand  men, 
the  Grand  Master  of  France,  Anne  de  Montmorency,  was 
holding  the  critical  point  in  the  French  line  of  defense 
against  the  invading  army  of  the  Emperor,  who  had  under 
his  command  more  than  fifty  thousand  men. 

Anne  de  Montmorency  was  descended  from  a  great 
Carolingian  feudatory  of  the  tenth  century.  His  ancestors 
of  the  Middle  Ages  had  maintained  and  extended  the  wealth 
and  power  of  the  family  so  that  the  head  of  the  house 
deserved  the  title  of  Premier  Baron  of  France.  When  Anne 
de  Montmorency,  who  was  one  year  older  than  Francis  I, 
entered  into  his  service,  he  rose  rather  rapidly  and  at  the 
age  of  thirty-nine  became  one  of  the  marshals  of  France. 
In  the  disastrous  battle  of  Pavia,  where  the  King  was  taken 
prisoner  and  all  his  chief  captains  killed  or  captured,  Mont- 
morency showed  the  greatest  courage  until  his  horse  fell 
under  him  and  he  was  compelled  to  surrender.  He  shared 
the  prison  of  his  royal  master  and  when  Francis  returned 

»N.  GranveUe  (1),  U,  506. 

30 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE   31 

home  in  March  1526,  he  made  his  companion  Grand  Master 
of  France  and  Governor  of  the  rich  province  of  Languedoc. 
As  Grand  Master,  Montmorency  had  regulated  the  mag- 
nificent ceremonies  of  the  interview  with  the  Pope  at 
Marseille  and  the  marriage  of  Catherine.  Always  quick 
and  persistent  at  the  game  by  which  patronage  was  ob- 
tained, he  secured  a  cardinal's  hat  for  Odet,  the  oldest  son 
of  his  dead  brother,  Marshal  Chatillon.  The  boy  was  only 
fifteen  and  his  appointment  was  against  the  canons  of  the 
church,  but  then  none  of  the  Montmorency  sons  or  nephews 
was  older. 

Montmorency  had  not  been,  in  the  beginning,  very  much 
of  a  friend  of  Catherine,  because  he  thought  that  the 
marriage  was  unwise  and  the  dowry  which  came  with  the 
banker's  daughter  too  small.  But  the  young  girl  had  done 
all  she  could  to  win  the  favor  of  the  old  courtier.  Here  is 
one  of  her  early  letters  to  him : 

"My  Cousin: 

"I  have  received  the  letter  which  you  wrote  me  assuring  you 
that  you  have  done  me  the  greatest  pleasure  which  is  possible  and 
I  want  to  ask  you  to  send  me  the  news  and  that  you  do  not  write 
to  me  any  more  ceremoniously  because  you  know  well  that  you 
ought  not  to  write  so  to  me;  which  will  be  the  end.  Recom- 
mending myself  very  heartily  to  you, 

"Yom-  good  cousin, 

"Caterine."  *• 

While  her  husband  was  at  the  camp  Catherine  wrote 
another  letter  to  the  Grand  Master  whose  spelling  is  even 
more  illiterate  than  this  one: 

"My  Gossip: 

"I  got  your  letter  in  the  night,  by  which  I  have  heard  that 
Madam  the  Grand  Mistress  has  given  birth  to  a  child  of  which 
I  am  very  glad,  since  I  see  what  you  write  me  that  I  can  be  a 
god-parent,  because  I  was  in  great  fear  that  I  should  not  be 
and  also  my  gossip  take  good  care  that  Monseigneur  [her  hus- 

Letts.  I,  p.  3,  n. 


32  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

band]  does  not  hurt  himself,  because  I  have  heard  it  said  that 
he  fell  the  other  day  and  came  very  near  injuring  himself. 

"I  beg  you  take  good  care  of  him,  which  will  be  the  end. 
Recommending  myself  heartily  to  you, 

Your  good  cousin  and  gossip, 

"Caterine."  ^ 

The  Dauphin  had  been  received  in  the  camp  with  every 
demonstration  of  pleasure.  The  young  nobility,  who  chafed 
under  the  inaction  which  the  wise  caution  of  the  Grand 
Master  imposed  upon  them,  for  he  was  fighting  a  Fabian 
campaign,  hoped  that  he  would  lead  them  to  attack  the 
enemy.  But  the  young  prince  had  too  much  respect  for 
the  experienced  general  to  be  willing  to  trouble  his  plans 
in  any  way.  That  wise  tact  won  the  lasting  loyalty  of 
Montmorency  and  Henry's  visit  to  the  camp  was  the  begin- 
ning of  a  confidence  between  the  two  men  which  ended  only 
with  death. 

When  the  strategy  of  Montmorency  had  forced  the 
disastrous  retreat  of  the  Emperor  with  the  loss  of  half  his 
army,  the  King's  favor  redoubled.  In  1538  he  was  made 
Constable  of  France  and  for  some  years  he  really  controlled 
the  policy  of  the  King.  One  of  the  Court  secretaries  wrote 
to  the  French  Ambassador  at  London.  "It  seems  to  me 
that  you  had  better  always  address  your  dispatches  to  the 
Grand  Master  even  when  he  is  not  at  court,  for  all  the 
other  ambassadors  do  it,  and  you  will  do  well  always  to 
write  to  him  a  copy  of  any  letter  you  send  to  the  King." 
And  the  Venetian  Ambassador  wrote  in  1538  of  "the  Con- 
stable who  manages  and  governs  all  this  kingdom  alone  as 
he  wishes."  Although  he  was  the  favorite  and  practically 
the  sole  minister  of  an  ambitious  and  warlike  king,  Mont- 
morency used  his  influence  always  in  favor  of  peace;  so 
much  so  that  he  was  regarded  as  a  Spanish  partisan  and 
falsely  accused  of  being  in  the  pay  of  the  Emperor.  It  was 
chiefly  due  to  his  exertions  that  the  ten  years'  truce  of 
Nice  (June  1538)  was  made  between  the  Emperor  and 

*  Letts.  I,  3. 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE   33 

Francis  I,  in  consequence  of  which  Charles  V  visited  the 
King  of  France  at  Paris.  Thus  triumphant  both  in  war 
and  diplomacy  "with  the  superintendence  of  the  affairs  of 
state  in  his  hand,"  the  Constable  Montmorency,  the  most 
powerful  subject  in  Europe,  gave  more  help  to  his  friend 
the  young  Dauphin  than  he  received  from  him.^ 

The  personality  of  Prince  Henry  was  of  the  kind  that 
needed  help  at  a  court  like  that  of  Francis  I.  The  King 
was  a  large  handsome  man  of  such  tactful  manners  that 
everyone  who  talked  with  him  went  away  satisfied.  His 
personahty  was  imposing.  The  Venetian  Ambassador 
wrote  of  him,  "The  King  has  a  royal  presence,  so  much  so 
that  any  one  seeing  him  without  knowing  his  face  would 
say  at  once  'That  is  the  King.'  "  He  dressed  magnificently, 
was  never  weary  of  pleasure  and  rode  in  a  stag  hunt  nearly 
every  day  in  the  week.  He  used  to  say,  that,  when  he  was 
old  and  sick,  he  would  be  carried  after  the  hounds  in  a 
litter  and  even  added  perhaps  he  would  give  orders  for 
his  dead  body  to  be  carried  a-hunting  in  a  coffin.  His  oldest 
son,  Henry,  who  was  also  large,  was  a  tireless  hunter  and 
one  of  the  best  young  men  in  France  at  the  dangerous  game 
of  the  tournament.  But  he  seemed  of  a  melancholy,  even 
saturnine  disposition,  so  that  there  were  many  at  court  who 
affirmed  that  they  had  never  seen  him  smile.  It  was  not 
generally  known  that  the  black-haired  young  man  of  a 
pallid,  almost  livid  complexion,  was  a  good  fellow  among  his 
intimates  and  the  Venetian  Ambassador  writes:  "I  have 
seen  him  sometimes  joke  and  make  fun  with  his  brother  as 
if  they  were  comrades  rather  than  brothers."  When  he 
became  King  a  few  years  later  he  developed  among  his 
intimates  an  occasional  tendency  to  horseplay  which  made 
him  shove  a  page  into  the  water  in  joke  and  trap  a  coun- 
cillor into  tumbling  into  a  moat.  Henry  did  not  get  on 
very  well  with  his  father,  while  his  younger  brother  Charles 
showed  openly  much  greater  dehght  in  all  his  father's  habits 

"B.  N.  Qairambault,  5643  f.,  336,  ctd.  Decrue  (1).  Rel.  I,  1,  p.  209. 
B.  N.  fds.  fr.  ctd.  Decrue  (1),  358. 


34  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

and  pleasures.  Charles  was  undoubtedly  the  father's  fa- 
vorite, and  much  more  popular  at  court  and  among  the 
people  than  the  Crown  Prince.  The  court  gossips  whis- 
pered that  there  was  jealousy  and  an  incipient  quarrel 
between  the  two  brothers,  who  were  of  the  most  opposite 
possible  natures.^ 

This  supposition  that  the  Constable  could  help  the 
Dauphin  more  than  the  Dauphin  could  help  him,  is  borne 
out  by  the  facts  connected  with  the  Constable's  sudden  fall 
from  power.  The  court  was  filled  with  intrigues  and  the 
power  of  the  greatest  officers  of  the  crown  uncertain.  The 
Venetian  Ambassador  gives  us  a  vivid  picture  of  the 
situation : 

"There  are  in  France  three  principal  titles  whose  holders  have 
no  equals.  They  are  the  Chancellor,  the  Constable  and  the 
Admiral.  The  Chancellor  is  the  head  of  justice  and  has  the  great 
seal.  The  Constable  is  the  first  dignitary  of  France.  He  is 
Captain-General  of  the  army  and  Lieutenant-General  of  the 
King.  The  Admiral  may  be  called  the  Captain-General  at  sea. 
During  my  mission  (two  years)  I  have  seen  all  three  of  these 
great  officials  at  the  top  and  at  the  bottom,  because  when  I 
arrived  at  Court  the  Admiral  was  a  prisoner  accused  of  the  most 
atrocious  evil  deeds.  Two  months  later  he  was  set  at  liberty, 
and  in  less  than  six  months  he  was  not  only  restored  to  his  former 
dignity,  but  to  greater  authority  than  he  ever  had  before,  with 
a  consequent  depression  of  the  Constable,  who  suddenly  fell  from 
that  supreme  influence  he  had  with  the  King.  The  Chancellor 
was  still  at  the  height  of  his  greatness  when  I  left  the  Court  .  .  . 
but  when  I  arrived  at  Turin  I  heard  that  he  had  been  sent  as  a 
prisoner  to  the  tower  at  Bourges."  ^ 

The  Constable  was  left  open  to  his  enemies  by  the  failure 
of  his  peace  policy.  The  Emperor  refused  to  keep  his 
promise  to  marry  his  daughter  to  Francis'  second  son,  with 
the  Duchy  of  Milan  as  dot  and  war  became  inevitable.  The 
Constable  accepted  the  situation  and  did  his  best  to  help 
the  King  prepare,  but,  unfortunately  for  him,  there  was 

*Rel.  I.  1,  p.  336,  ib.  4,  pp.  44.  47,  ib.  2,  p.  93. 
'  Rel.  I,  4,  p.  36. 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE      35 

a  jealous  quarrel  between  the  two  most  influential  women 
at  court  and  the  power  of  the  Constable  became  the  bone 
of  contention  in  it.  These  rivals  were  not  the  Queen  and 
the  Dauphiness,  but  the  mistresses  of  their  respective  hus- 
bands; the  Duchesse  d'Etampes  and  Diane  de  Poitiers. 
The  Duchesse  d'Etampes  hated  the  Constable  so  heartily 
that  one  day  when  his  name  was  mentioned,  she  cried  out, 
"He  is  a  great  scoundrel :  he  fooled  the  King  by  saying  the 
Emperor  would  give  him  at  once  the  Duchy  of  Milan  when 
he  knew  all  the  while  he  would  not  do  it."  The  mistress  of 
the  Dauphin  and  her  friends  had  no  chance  against  the 
mistress  of  the  King,  playing  upon  his  disappointment  and 
ill  humor  with  his  old  servant.  Power  was  withdrawn  from 
Constable  Montmorency  and  so  many  slights  put  upon  him 
that,  in  December  1540,  he  asked  permission  to  retire  to 
his  estates.  The  King  granted  him  permission  with  affec- 
tionate phrases  and  added  as  he  said  good-by  'T  cannot  find 
more  than  one  fault  in  you  and  that  is  that  you  do  not  love 
those  whom  I  love."  Braving  the  hostility  of  the  King's 
mistress  the  Constable  reappeared  occasionally  at  court, 
until  an  unmistakable  hint  made  it  evident  to  him  that  his 
presence  was  not  wanted.  At  the  ceremonies  which  marked 
the  engagement  to  marry  of  Jeanne  d'Albret,  Princess  of 
Navarre,  and  the  Duke  of  Cleves,  the  little  fiancee  had  so 
long  and  heavy  a  train  that  she  could  not  walk  the  whole 
length  of  the  aisle  to  the  altar.  The  King,  turning  to  the 
Constable,  ordered  him  to  carry  her.  The  next  day  he  left 
the  court  of  Francis  I  forever.  (May  1541.)  A  few  months 
later  he  asked  for  permission  to  return,  but  received  a  tart 
refusal  with  the  word  that  if  he  came  without  permission 
he  would  be  sorry  for  it.  He  kept  the  sword  of  the  Con- 
stable and  the  wand  of  the  Grand  Master,  but  he  had 
neither  authority  nor  influence  so  long  as  Francis  I  lived.^ 

Caught  between  two  jealous  women,  both  of  whom 
despised  her,  and  without  the  aid  of  the  great  functionary 
who  had  begun  to  be  her  friend,  Catherine  saw  that  her 

*A.  N.  K.  ctd.  Decrue  400,  State  Papers  VIII.  501. 


36  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

only  defense  was  the  favor  of  the  King.  Originally  she 
had  not  possessed  it.  The  failure  of  her  uncle,  the  Pope, 
to  carry  out  the  secret  agreements  of  her  marriage  con- 
tract, had  prejudiced  her  father-in-law  against  her.  About 
two  years  after  her  marriage  the  Spanish  Ambassador  wrote, 
"The  Duchess  of  Orleans  is  always  treated  according  to 
the  customary  honors  of  her  rank,  but  some  of  her  ladies- 
in-waiting  tell  me  that  they  heard  the  King  say  he  had 
not  been  well  advised  in  marrying  his  son  to  her."  ^ 

In  spite  of  this  handicap,  she  succeeded  in  gaining  and 
keeping  the  liking  of  her  father-in-lav/.  Francis  was  per- 
haps the  greatest  living  patron  of  literature  and  art  and 
he  seems  to  have  really  loved  them;  while  with  many  of 
the  great  patrons  of  the  Renascence,  patronage  was  to  a 
considerable  extent  a  mere  matter  of  fashion  and  another 
means  of  expressing  an  exaggerated  egotism.  The  sign  and 
symbol  of  the  New  Learning  was  a  knowledge  of  Greek. 
No  one  who  did  not  possess  at  least  a  smattering  of  that 
language  could  pretend  to  the  title  of  a  Humanist.  Cath- 
erine therefore  began  to  study  Greek.  The  Venetian  Am- 
bassador reports  that  she  made  such  great  progress  that 
it  astonished  everybody  at  court,  but  it  is  dij05cult  to  find 
any  sign  that  she  ever  got  very  much  out  of  her  study 
of  Greek  except  a  chance  to  please  her  father-in-law. 

Even  greater  than  Francis'  liking  for  letters  and  art  was 
his  passion  for  hunting.  He  had  formed  what  he  called 
"the  Little  Band"  of  the  court  ladies,  who  seemed  to  him 
the  prettiest  and  most  agreeable.  With  these  he  frequently 
went  off  on  hunting  trips.  The  Dauphiness  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  go  along,  and  she  proved  to  be  such  a  good 
sportswoman  that  he  finally  gave  her  a  standing  permission 
to  hunt  with  him  whenever  she  wanted  to.  She  was  a  bold 
rider  and  looked  well  in  the  saddle.  She  apparently  intro- 
duced into  France  something  like  the  modern  side-saddle. 
Brantome  says  that  it  was  suggested  to  him  by  some  of  her 
ladies  in  waiting,  that  she  did  this  in  order  to  make  the 

*Cal.  Span.  1535,  p.  35. 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE  37 

best  possible  use  of  her  natural  advantages  for  the  display 
of  the  fine  hosiery  for  whose  quality  and  proper  adjustment 
she  took  the  greatest  care.  But  then  Brantome  was  more 
than  a  little  inclined  to  take  gossip  for  gospel.  On  one  of 
these  parties  her  horse,  which  had  been  carelessly  bitted  by 
the  groom,  bolted  with  her,  broke  the  horn  of  the  saddle 
against  the  roof  of  a  shed  and  threw  her  to  the  ground  so 
hard  that  she  was  very  badly  bruised.  The  King  took  such 
affectionate  care  of  her  that  Catherine  could  hardly  have 
regretted  this  first  of  a  number  of  accidents  which  befell 
her  because  of  her  fondness  for  riding.^ 

Probably  the  ladies,  who  signed  the  following  letter  to 
Francis  I,  were  members  of  the  "Little  Band." 

"To  My  Sovereign  Lord  the  King: 

"Monseigneur,  our  unspeakable  joy  deprives  us  of  sense  and 
control  of  the  pen  to  write  to  you,  for,  although  the  capture  of 
Hesdin  [surrendered  to  Francis  I  by  the  Spaniards  in  the  spring 
of  1537]  was  confidently  expected,  nevertheless  we  have  been 
since  Monday  so  full  of  fear  of  everything  that  was  to  be  feared, 
that  we  were  half  dead  and  this  morning  this  messenger  revived 
us  with  such  a  marvellous  consolation  that,  after  running  one  to 
other  to  announce  the  good  news  more  by  tears  of  joy  than  by 
words,  we  have  come  here  with  the  Queen  to  join  in  praising  Him 
who  in  all  your  affairs  has  granted  you  His  favor.  We  assure 
you,  monseigneur,  that  the  Queen  embraced  both  the  messenger 
and  all  of  us,  who  share  her  joy,  so  that  we  hardly  know  what 
we  do  or  what  we  are  writing  you.  Please  excuse  us  if  we  are 
transported  by  the  joy  we  know  you  feel.  Praying  the  Eternal 
Father,  who  remembered  His  David  and  His  loving  kindness,  to 
continue  to  you  as  He  has  done  and  will  do  His  love  and  grace, 
etc.  .  .  .  Monseigneur,  before  I  close,  the  Queen  has  ordered  me 
to  beg  you  with  all  the  ladies  that  you  would  be  pleased  to  order 
us  to  come  and  see  you  whenever  you  may  choose,  because  with 
St.  Thomas  we  shall  not  be  content  until  we  have  seen  our  King 
revived  by  a  happy  victory  and  very  humbly  we  beg  you  for  this 
favour." 

This  letter  was  signed,  "Your  very  humble  and  obedient 
subjects:    Catherine,  Marguerite   [the  King's  daughter], 

*  Neg.  Tosc.  Ill,  140,  158,  Brant.  VII,  344. 


38  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Marguerite  [his  sister],  Marguerite  [Marguerite  of  Bour- 
bon], Anne  [the  King's  mistress.]"  ^ 

Catherine  needed  the  friendship  of  the  King  because  the 
greatest  trial  and  danger  of  her  life  was  close  at  hand. 
When  she  had  been  married  nine  years  without  giving  birth 
to  a  child,  it  was  suggested  that  it  would  be  well  for  the 
Dauphin  to  divorce  her  and  marry  again  in  order  that  there 
might  be  heirs  for  the  throne.  Both  the  King  and  her  hus- 
band seemed  at  first  to  listen  to  this  suggestion  enough 
to  consider  seriously  acting  upon  it.  Catherine,  hearing 
of  it,  went  first  to  her  husband,  who  "because  he  loved  her" 
(in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  also  loved  Diane  much  more) 
was  easily  persuaded  to  give  up  the  idea.  She  then  went 
to  the  King,  to  whom  she  said:  "She  had  heard  that  it  was 
his  intention  to  give  another  woman  as  wife  to  her  husband 
and,  since  it  had  not,  up  to  the  present  time,  pleased  God 
to  grant  her  the  grace  to  have  sons,  it  seemed  to  her  quite 
proper  that  he  did  not  think  it  best  to  wait  any  longer 
to  provide  properly  for  the  succession  of  heirs  for  so  great 
a  kingdom.  Her  gratitude  to  him  because  he  had  deigned 
to  accept  her  as  a  daughter-in-law,  was  so  great  that  she 
did  not  propose  to  resist  the  will  of  His  Majesty,  but  rather 
to  bear  that  great  grief.  She  had  therefore  resolved  either 
to  enter  into  a  convent,  or  rather,  if  it  was  pleasing  to 
His  Majesty,  to  remain  in  the  train  of  the  fortunate  woman 
who  was  to  be  the  wife  of  her  husband."  She  said  these 
words  to  King  Francis.  He,  being  of  a  noble  and  generous 
disposition,  was  so  much  moved  that  he  said  to  her,  "My 
daughter,  have  no  fear.  Since  God  has  willed  that  you 
should  be  my  daughter-in-law  and  wife  of  the  Dauphin,  I 
do  not  wish  to  make  any  change  and  perhaps  it  will  please 
Almighty  God  in  this  matter  to  grant  to  you  and  to  me  the 
gift  we  so  much  long  for."  ^ 

Nearly  twenty  years  later  Catherine  still  kept  a  bitter 
memory  of  this  great  danger  which  she  had  averted  by  her 

*  Letts.  X.  1. 
»Rel.  I,  4,  p.  73. 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE      39 

ready  tongue.  In  a  letter  to  her  daughter  written  in  1581 
she  makes  a  veiled  allusion  to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine 
and  his  brother  the  Duke  of  Guise  as  "those  who  wanted 
to  take  away  from  me  your  father,"  and  this  accusation 
against  them  passed  over  into  the  controversial  literature 
of  that  period.  It  can  hardly  be  true.  At  the  time  when 
this  plan  was  discussed  Charles,  afterwards  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine,  was  a  brilliant  lad  of  seventeen.  So  great  was 
his  reputation  that  the  King  appointed  him  tutor  to  the 
Dauphin,  and  although  six  years  younger  than  his  pupil, 
Charles  of  Lorraine  soon  acquired  great  influence  with  him, 
which  he  increased  by  assiduous  court  to  Prince  Henry's 
mistress  Diana.  While  therefore  it  is  barely  possible  that 
Catherine's  suspicion  was  founded  on  fact,  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that  it  was  the  result  of  her  life-long  hatred  for  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine;  a  hatred  which  began  secretly  when 
she  saw  him  assiduously  flattering  the  carelessly  kind  rival 
who  had  stolen  from  her  the  husband  she  loved  with  all  her 
heart.  This  story  is  probably  like  that  other  story,  circu- 
lated when  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  become  the  best 
hated  man  in  France,  that  the  dying  King  Francis  solemnly 
warned  the  future  Henry  II  against  the  Cardinal  and  his 
brother  the  Duke  of  Guise,  in  a  prophecy  which  became 
popular  in  a  couplet:  "The  late  King  foresaw  this  point 
that  those  of  the  House  of  Guise  would  strip  his  children 
to  their  waistcoats  and  his  poor  people  to  their  shirts." 
Neither  of  these  young  men  had  enough  power  and  influence 
during  the  reign  of  Francis  I  to  have  attracted  his  particular 
attention.^ 

This  danger,  that  Catherine  might  be  repudiated  by  her 
husband,  like  the  former  Dauphiness  Jeanne,  daughter  of 
Louis  XI,  and  like  her  contemporary.  Queen  Katherine  of 
England,  because  she  had  not  borne  children,  was  forever 
put  aside  by  the  birth,  on  the  nineteenth  day  of  January, 
1543,  of  her  son  Francis  (afterwards  Francis  II).  His  birth 
was  followed  in  rapid  succession  by  that  of  nine  other  chU- 

*  Letts.  I,  591,  Conde  VI,  13,  B.  N.  Port.  Font.  299  f.  26. 


40  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

dren:  April,  1545,  Elizabeth  (afterwards  Queen  of  Spain); 
September,  1547,  Claude,  afterwards  Duchess  of  Lorraine; 
1548,  Louis,  who  died  in  1550;  June,  1550,  Charles,  after- 
wards Charles  IX  of  France;  September,  1551,  Alexander 
Edward,  who  after  a  change  of  name,  reigned  as  Henry  III ; 
May,  1553,  Marguerite,  afterwards  Queen  of  Navarre; 
March,  1554,  Hercules,  afterwards  Duke  of  Anjou  and  Duke 
of  Brabant;  twins,  Victoire  and  Jeanne,  born  in  1556,  one 
of  whom  died  immediately  and  the  other  lived  but  seven 
weeks. 

The  first  news  of  the  chance  of  the  fulfilment  of  Cath- 
erine's pious  hopes  that  God  would  send  her  a  child  to  be 
the  future  King  of  France,  was  sent  to  the  great  family 
friend  now  in  disgrace: 

"To  My  Gossip  the  Constable: 
"My  Gossip: 

"Because  I  know  so  well  that  you  wish  as  much  as  I  do 
to  see  my  children,  I  want  to  write  te  tell  you  that  I  hope  to 
have  a  child,  being  certain  that  there  is  no  one  who  will  be  more 
glad  of  it  than  you.  As  this  hope  is  the  beginning  of  all  my 
prosperity  and  happiness,  so  I  trust  to  bring  it  to  fruition:  for 
which  I  pray  God  and  that  He  will  give  you  what  you  desire. 

"Your  good  cousin  &  gossip, 

"Caterine." 

The  Constable  gave  this  interest  in  her  first  child  which 
Catherine  bespoke  before  his  birth.  Four  years  later  the 
Venetian  Ambassador  reports  that  the  boy  and  his  little 
sister  are  being  cared  for  at  the  L'Isle  Adam,  one  of  the 
Constable's  stately  houses.^ 

Although  she  bore  him  ten  children,  Catherine  did  not 
have  her  husband's  heart.  He  always  showed  her  afi'ection 
and  outward  respect,  but  his  love  was  for  Diana,  called 
Madame  la  Seneschale,  afterwards  made  Duchess  of  Valen- 
tinois,  to  whom  he  was  bound  by  an  infatuation  that  ended 
only  with  her  death.    At  an  epoch  when  he  was  twenty- 

*B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3952;  Les  Aages  des  enfans  du  Roi  Henri  II,  Letts.  I,  6. 
Rel.  I,  2,  p.  179. 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE  41 

seven  and  Diana  forty-seven,  the  Venetian  Ambassador  sug- 
gested that  many  people  believed  the  relation  between  them 
was  a  maternal  one;  that  Diana  had  trained  Henry  in 
princely  manners  and  virtue.  He  considered  this  training 
very  successful,  for  he  said  the  Prince,  who  had  been  at  first 
a  rather  light  and  foolish  person,  was  now  just  the  contrary 
and  in  particular  he  seemed  to  be  much  more  attentive 
to  his  wife  than  he  had  been  before  he  came  under  the 
influence  of  Diana.^  But  this  information  is  not  correct. 
In  spite  of  the  fact  that  her  great  rival  at  court,  the  King's 
mistress,  the  Duchess  d'Etampes,  was  accustomed  to 
mention  negligently  the  fact  that  she  had  been  born  the 
day  that  Madame  la  Seneschale  was  married,  it  seemed  to 
be  true  of  Diana  as  of  Cleopatra  that  "age  cannot  wither 
her  nor  custom  stale  her  infinite  variety."  After  he  became 
king,  Henry  visited  her  every  day,  at  the  close  of  business, 
before  he  visited  his  wife,  and  it  is  evident  from  all  reports 
of  the  French  court  that,  both  in  matters  of  the  head  and 
matters  of  the  heart,  Diana  had  far  more  influence  over  him 
than  the  mother  of  his  children. 

This  following  of  the  example  of  his  father  in  publicly 
installing  a  sort  of  official  mistress,  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  regarded  as  particularly  shocking.  Catherine  herself, 
when  her  husband  had  been  dead  more  than  twenty  years, 
writing  to  Henry  of  Navarre,  who  had  illtreated  his  wife, 
Catherine's  daughter  Marguerite,  in  connection  with  his 
mistress,  held  up  to  him  the  example  of  her  own  husband. 
"You  are  not  the  first  husband,  young  and  not  very  wise 
in  such  things.  But  I  find  that  you  are  indeed  the  first 
and  the  only  husband  who  after  an  affair  of  this  kind  could 
talk  as  you  have  to  his  wife.  The  affair  of  Madame  Valen- 
tinois  was  like  that  of  Madame  d'Etampes  in  all  honor  and 
he  would  have  been  very  much  annoyed  if  I  had  wished  to 
keep  near  me  and  in  my  service  anyone  who  desired  to 
make  a  scandal  out  of  it."  ^   The  maitresse  en  titre  was  not 

*Rel.  I,  1,  p.  243. 
•Letts.  VIII,  36. 


42  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Catherine's  only  rival.  Henry  had  a  child  by  a  Scotch 
woman,  Madame  Flamange  or  Fleming,  and  also  by  a 
Savoyarde  Nicole  de  Savigny  and  a  third  by  an  Italian 
mistress. 

Catherine  was  able  after  twenty  years  to  look  back  with 
complacence  on  her  enforced  sufferance  of  her  husband's 
infidelity,  but  she  suffered  at  the  time  the  tortures  of  a  very 
terrible  jealousy.  We  know  this,  not  only  from  the  gossip 
of  Brantome,  but  also  from  what  Catherine  did  after  Henry's 
death.  She  ordered  the  trunks  and  chests  of  Madame 
Fleming  broken  open  and  searched,  and  all  letters  and 
papers  in  them  sent  to  her.  Nicole  de  Savigny  wrote  the 
Cardinal  Granvella  in  October,  1564,  that  "she  had  with 
her  the  little  Saint  Henry,  that  the  Duchess  of  Savoy  would 
give  testimony  that  he  was  the  son  of  the  late  good  King 
Henry  and  also  that  since  his  death  I  have  suffered  great 
cruelty."  * 

After  the  retirement  from  court  of  their  powerful  friend, 
the  Constable,  neither  Catherine  nor  her  husband  had  been 
able  to  exert  any  political  influence.  For  later  a  Venetian 
Ambassador  writes  of  Henry  II,  "When  His  Majesty  came 
to  the  crown,  he  was  entirely  without  experience  in  affairs, 
because  the  King  his  father  had  not  allowed  him  to  take 
any  part  in  the  government."  Finding  herself  without 
influence  in  France,  Catherine  used  her  influence  in  the 
only  place  where  she  possessed  any,  in  Italy.  We  have 
fifty-seven  of  the  letters  which  she  wrote  between  the  dis- 
grace of  the  Constable  and  the  death  of  Francis  I  (Sep- 
tember, 1541,  to  March,  1547).  Three  are  about  her  chil- 
dren. The  rest  are  addressed  to  Italy.  Three  of  these  were 
written  to  her  girlhood  friends,  the  nuns  of  the  Murate, 
asking  for  their  prayers;  five  are  addressed  to  the  Duke  of 
Ferrara  and  six  to  the  Cardinal  Famese,  the  rest  are  to 
the  Duke  or  Duchess  of  Florence.^ 

The  first  Duke  of  Florence,  Catherine's  half-brother 

*B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6618  f.  20,  Granvelle  (1)  VIII,  386. 
'30  in  Letts.  27,  in  my  copies  of  unprinted  originals. 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE   43 

Alexander,  had  been  murdered  in  January,  1537,  by  his 
young  comrade  and  distant  relative,  Lorenzino  de'  Medici. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Cosimo,  Catherine's  first  cousin,  with 
whom  during  some  years  of  her  childhood  she  had  been 
brought  up,  but  for  whom  she  seems  to  have  had  no  affec- 
tion comparable  to  her  love  for  her  cousins  the  Strozzi. 
Seven  of  these  Italian  letters  are  letters  of  compliment,  as 
when,  for  instance,  she  sent  Cosimo  six  hunting  dogs  and 
his  wife  four  hackneys.  The  other  thirty-four  were  written 
to  use  her  influence  in  favor  of  her  friends  and  to  let  them 
know  it.  She  writes  with  eloquent  regrets  to  her  cousin 
who  had  asked  her  to  get  something  done  at  the  Court  of 
France;  "I  wish  that  the  thing  had  turned  out  differently 
and  if  I  had  only  possessed  greater  influence,  etc.,"  and  she 
turned  with  the  greatest  zest  to  quarters  where  she  might 
be  able  to  pull  the  wires  of  social  and  political  power.  Now 
she  seeks  a  position  for  a  man  who  has  passed  "The  greatest 
part  of  his  life  in  the  service  of  our  house  and  who  is  already 
arrived  at  old  age  where  he  cannot  stand  the  work  which 
is  required  in  following  the  court  here ;  .  .  .  I  beg  you,  my 
cousin,  that  ...  for  my  sake,  you  will  employ  him  in  some 
place  where  he  can  have  during  the  rest  of  his  life  such  a 
position  as  he  well  deserves."  ^  Now  she  asks  promotion 
for  some  relative  of  one  of  the  maids  of  honor  who  followed 
her  from  Florence.  Frequently  she  suggests  an  inter- 
ference with  the  courts  of  justice;  though  this  is  always 
veiled  under  decorous  terms.  The  following  specimen  let- 
ters will  serve  to  show  the  bent  of  Catherine's  mind  during 
these  five  or  six  years. 

"To  THE  Duke  of  Florence: 

"My  Cousin: 

"I  have  written  you  several  times  in  favor  of  the  affairs  of 
Messire  Pandolph,  who  carries  this  letter  and  also  about  certain 
monies  which  he  and  his  brothers  claim  are  due  to  them  from 
us,  and,  although  my  cousin  I  know  and  hold  myself  assured  that 
you  wish  in  this  instance  and  in  all  others  to  act  towards  him 

*  Letts.  I,  12,  Arch.  Med.  4726,  f .  4. 


44  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

according  to  justice  and  reason,  nevertheless  I  have  desired  to 
write  you  the  present  letter  and  to  beg  you  very  affectionately 
that,  for  my  sake,  you  will  show  him  all  the  graciousness  which 
you  can  and  help  him  with  your  favor  in  such  a  way  that  he 
may  recognize  that  my  favor  has  been  of  service  to  him  with 
you.  If  you  gratify  me  in  this,  I  shall  esteem  the  pleasure  which 
you  may  do  to  him  as  done  to  me  and  as  one  which  I  should 
always  be  ready  to  return  to  you  or  to  your  servitors  whenever 
you  wish  to  employ  me.  And  in  this  place  I  recommend  myself 
to  you  out  of  a  very  good  heart;  out  of  which  I  pray  our  Lord 
to  give  you  what  you  desire. 

"Written  at  Evreulx  this  27th  day  of  September  1542. 

"Your  good  cousin, 

"Cateeine."  * 


To  Cardinal  Farnese,  Legate  of  Avignon : 

"My  Cousin: 

"It  is  now  a  long  time  since  for  my  sake  you  promised  to  give 
to  the  prior  of  Vallence,  brother  of  the  procurer  general  of 
Monseigneur  (her  husband)  and  also  mine,  the  first  prebend 
which  should  fall  vacant  in  your  chiu-ch  of  Saint  Agricol  in 
Avignon.  .  .  .  Nevertheless  you  have  since  written  to  your  vicar 
of  Avignon  to  give  it  to  one  of  your  own  people.  For  this  reason 
my  cousin  I  wish  to  write  you  and  to  beg  you  again  to  bestow  the 
first  prebend  which  falls  vacant  upon  the  said  Vallence.  .  .  .  And 
in  return,  if  I  can  do  anything  for  any  of  your  people,  I  will 
employ  myself  in  it  with  a  very  good  heart;  out  of  which  I 
recommend  myself  to  you  and  pray  God,  etc. 

"At  Paris  the  20th  day  of  February  1544. 

"Your  good  cousin, 

"Catebine."  * 

"To  THE  Duke  of  Florence: 
"My  Cousin: 

"I  have  written  to  you  before  to  beg  you  for  my  sake  to  set 
free  from  prison  Anthoine  Gazzette,  brother  of  one  of  my  young 
women  whom  I  brought  with  me  when  I  came  to  France.  Since 
I  have  not  had  any  answer  from  you  and  have  heard  that  the 
said  Anthoine  is  still  kept  prisoner,  I  want  to  beg  you  again  to 
set  him  free  for  my  sake.    And  if  he  has  done  any  evil  to  you 

'Arch.  Med.  4726  f.  4. 

"Arch.  Nap.;  Arch.  Med.  4726  f.  41. 


WIFE  OF  THE  HEIR  TO  THE  FRENCH  THRONE   45 

.  .  .  pardon  it  and  you  will  give  me  very  great  pleasure.    Pray- 
ing God  my  cousin,  etc. 

"Written  at  Saint  Germain  en  Laye  the  sixteenth  day  of 
January  1547. 

"Your  good  cousin, 

"Caterine." 

At  this  time  Catherine  counted  the  future  Admiral 
Coligny  and  his  brother  among  her  intimate  friends.  So 
she  wrote  the  following  note: 

"To  THE  Duchess  op  Florence: 
"My  Cousin: 

"The  brothers  Chatillon  and  d'Andelot,  gentlemen  of  the 
chamber  of  Monsieur  and  others  of  their  company,  have  deter- 
mined to  make  a  trip  to  Notre  Dame  de  Lorette  and  they  plan 
during  this  voyage  to  see  the  entire  country  of  Italy  and  chiefly 
your  city  of  Florence,  because  of  the  good  renown  which  it  has. 
Because  they  are  personages  whom  Monsieur  and  I  hold  in  very 
high  esteem,  I  have  begged  them,  my  cousin,  to  visit  you  and  to 
tell  you  all  the  news  about  me,  which,  thank  God,  is  very  good. 
I  assure  you  that  you  will  do  me  a  very  great  pleasure  by 
showing  these  gentlemen  all  the  favor  which  you  can  and  I  shall 
be  as  grateful  to  you  as  if  you  had  shown  this  favor  to  myself. 
Here  I  close,  praying  God,  etc. 

"From  Argilly  this  28th  day  of  September  [probably  1546]. 

"Your  good  cousin, 

"Caterine."  ^ 

The  following  letter  written  toward  the  close  of  this 
period  suggests  that  Catherine  was  beginning  to  find  con- 
solation for  some  of  her  troubles  in  the  love  of  her  children, 
which  remained  very  strong  up  to  the  end  of  her  life. 

"Mons.  de  Humieres: 

"I  have  received  a  letter  which  you  have  written  me  and  you 
have  given  me  a  very  great  pleasure  in  sending  me  news  of  my 
children  [these  were  Francis  and  Elizabeth,  one  not  quite  four 
and  the  other  less  than  two  years  old].  I  am  very  glad  that 
Madame  de  Humieres  has  arrived  because  she  will  be  able  to 
help  you  take  care  of  my  said  infants.    Monsieur  and  I  do  not 

*  Arch.  Med.  4726  f .  53. 


46  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

recommend  them  to  your  care  because  of  the  assurance  that  we 
already  have  of  the  great  care  which  you  and  Madame  de 
Himaieres  will  give  to  them.  I  beg  you,  Mons.  de  Humieres,  to 
continue  to  send  me  often  news  of  them  because  you  cannot  do 
a  greater  pleasure  to  Monsieur  and  to  me. 
"Written  at  Compiegne  the  21st  day  of  December  1546. 
"La  byen  vostre, 

"Caterine."  ^ 

The  father  also  wrote  the  same  day  to  the  governor  of 
his  son: 

"I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  9th  day  of  this  present 
month  by  which  I  understand  very  fully  the  news  of  my  children 
and  also  the  account  of  my  son  who  doesn't  wish  any  longer  to 
be  dressed  like  a  woman,  for  which  I  am  glad.  And  it  is  entirely 
reasonable  that  he  should  have  trousers  when  he  asks  for  them, 
because  I  do  not  have  any  doubt  that  he  understands  perfectly 
well  what  he  needs."  ^ 

Henry  II  was  an  affectionate  father  whose  correspond- 
ence was  continuously  occupied  with  the  care  of  his  children 
and  Margeret  remembered  afterwards  with  great  pleasure 
how  he  used  to  take  her  on  his  knee  to  talk  to  her. 

*  Letts.  I,  p.  17. 
'Letts.  I,  18,  n. 


CHAPTER  IV 

QUEEN  OF  FRANCE 

Francis  I  died  in  March,  1547,  in  his  fifty- third  year. 
The  powerful  big-boned  man  who  had  once  been  able  to 
keep  his  seat  in  the  tilting  yard  against  any  gentleman  of 
France,  was  worn  out  by  worry,  fatigue  and  evil  pleasures. 
As  one  of  his  nobles  afterwards  wrote,  "Women  rather 
than  years  killed  him." 

At  the  age  of  twenty-eight  Catherine  became  Queen 
of  France.  Her  husband,  Henry  II,  was  just  her  own 
age,  possessed  of  great  strength  and  endurance  and  very 
skillful  in  all  fashionable  games.  He  was  still  thought  to 
be  of  a  somewhat  melancholy  disposition  because  he  was 
not  much  of  a  talker;  though  it  was  noticed  that  in  defense 
of  his  own  opinions,  which  he  held  very  firmly,  he  spoke 
quite  freely.  He  had  no  reputation  for  intellectual  bril- 
liance like  his  father,  but  was  considered  to  have  a  solid 
judgment  which  would  improve  with  years.  He  was  very 
temperate  in  his  meats  and  drinks,  but  incUned  to  take  an 
excessive  amount  of  exercise  because  of  his  love  of  sport. 
He  rose  every  day  at  dawn  and  immediately  entered  into 
council  upon  the  pressing  affairs  of  the  kingdom.  He  was 
pious,  for  he  gave  himself  most  devoutly  every  morning 
to  prayer,  and  in  spite  of  his  love  of  horses  he  always 
refused  to  ride  on  Sunday  morning.  After  the  morning 
council  he  went  every  day  to  mass.  In  this  way,  writes 
the  Venetian  Ambassador,  "by  his  example  he  inspires  his 
people  with  the  spirit  of  religion  and  shows  himself  worthy 
of  the  name  of  the  Most  Christian  King."  He  was  at  his 
accession  exceedingly  popular  among  the  common  people 
and  he  immediately  increased  his  popularity  by  remitting 
taxes  imposed  by  his  father  and  beginning  to  cut  down 

47 


48  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

the  enormous  expenses  of  Francis  I's  court.  It  was  indeed 
time  that  some  relief  should  come  to  a  burdened  people. 
A  few  years  before  the  Venetian  Ambassador  reported  that 
a  friend  who  lived  in  Normandy  had  told  him  the  peasants 
were  fleeing  with  their  little  children  on  their  backs  in 
despair,  not  knowing  where  to  turn  because  the  taxes  had 
taken  all  they  had.  He  asked  some  of  them  where  they 
were  going  and  they  answered  "Where  God  wills.  We 
can't  stay  any  longer  here."  ^ 

The  pity  was  that  Henry's  financial  reforms  lasted  but 
a  short  time.  His  reckless  generosity,  the  renewed  extrava- 
gance of  his  court  and  his  wars,  soon  made  taxes  worse 
than  before.  The  splendid  ceremonial  of  Catherine's  coron- 
ation suggests  how  some  of  the  money  went.  It  took  place 
on  a  high  scaffold  built  in  the  Church  of  St.  Denis  and  car- 
peted with  cloth  of  gold;  except  the  steps  covered  with 
crimson  damask  embroidered  with  gold.  Four  other  scaf- 
folds filled  the  church;  for  the  Princes,  the  Chevaliers  of 
the  Order  of  St.  Michel,  together  with  the  Gentlemen  of 
the  King's  Chamber,  the  Ambassadors  and  the  Queen's 
ladies-in-waiting.  These  were  covered  by  cloth  of  gold  and 
violet  velvet  embroidered  with  lilies  and  the  benches  were 
draped  in  cloth  of  gold  and  silver.  Catherine's  mantle  was 
velvet  embroidered  with  gold  lilies  and  lined  with  ermine. 
The  headdress  gleamed  with  jewels  and  her  waist  was 
adorned  with  great  diamonds,  rubies  and  emeralds.  Her 
heavy  train  was  carried  by  the  two  Duchesses  of  Mont- 
pensier  and  the  Princess  de  la  Roche  Sur  Yon  and  "her 
whole  costume  was  of  such  excellence  and  value  that  the 
price  was  incalculable."  ^ 

The  first  thing  the  new  King  did  was  to  make  a  clean 
sweep  of  aU  his  father's  Councillors  and  so  far  as  he  could 
of  the  chief  officers  of  state.  The  more  active,  important 
officials  of  the  late  King  might  think  themselves  lucky  if 
they  escaped  arrest  and  charges  of  peculation.    The  only 

*ReI.  I,  1,  p.  242,  ib.  2,  pp.  172,  279.  ib.  4,  p.  39. 
*Sacre  de  Dame  C.  de  M.  Jean  Dallier,  1549. 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  49 

man  to  escape  shelving  or  prosecution  was  Francis  Olivier 
the  Chancellor,  "A  person  of  such  rare  virtue  that  there 
was  no  office  above  his  merit."  ^  But  there  were  some 
influential  people  who  could  not  be  dismissed  cavalierly 
because  they  had  a  standing  not  entirely  dependent  on  the 
King  who  wore  the  crown.  Twelve  of  the  French  Cardinals 
were  at  court.  Seven  of  these  Princes  of  the  Church  were 
now  told  that  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  go  to  Rome 
to  be  ready,  in  case  the  octogenarian  Pope  died,  to  elect 
a  successor  friendly  to  France.  Marshal  du  Biez  was  dis- 
graced. The  old  man  lost  his  Order  of  St.  Michel  and  his 
son-in-law  his  head.  A  second  Marshal,  Robert  de  la 
Marck,  had  married  Diana's  daughter  and  could  be  de- 
pended upon  by  the  new  administrators.  The  third,  the 
Neapolitan  Prince  of  Melfi,  also  escaped  enmity. 

Henry,  during  the  last  two  years  of  his  father's  reign, 
had  been  so  strongly  opposed  to  the  policy  of  state  that 
he  refused  to  come  to  the  meetings  of  the  royal  council, 
because  he  thought  they  did  everything  badly  and  he  would 
be  blamed  for  it  afterwards.  This  clean  sweep  of  the 
crown  councillors  was  therefore  to  be  expected,  and  it  was 
equally  natural  that  he  should  replace  them  by  men  who 
had  faced  his  father's  anger  and  shared  disgrace  with  him. 
Ever  since  the  time  the  Constable  Montmorency  had  nursed 
Prince  Henry  through  a  severe  illness,  the  Prince  had 
cherished  for  him  a  sort  of  filial  respect  greater  than  that 
he  felt  for  his  own  father,  and  almost  the  first  act  of  King 
Henry  II  was  to  restore  his  old  friend  to  the  exercise  of 
aU  the  authority  implied  by  his  titles.  The  seasoned  states- 
man regained  under  the  son  more  power  than  he  had  lost 
under  the  father  six  years  before.  The  Venetian  Ambas- 
sador reports:  "It  seems  as  if  the  King  did  not  know  how 
to  do  or  say  anything  without  the  Constable  and  so  makes 
him  do  and  say  everything;  so  that  it  can  almost  be  said 
that  one  is  the  breath  of  the  other."  ^ 

»De  Thou,  I,  246. 
•Bel.  I,  2,  p.  176. 


60  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

As  the  Constable's  own  children  were  still  too  young 
to  enter  into  active  service,  the  three  sons  of  his  sister  by 
her  first  husband,  Marshal  Chatillon,  rose  with  him.  Odet 
had  been  made  cardinal  of  Chatillon  in  1533  at  the  age  of 
sixteen.  He  rapidly  accumulated  the  Archbishopric  of 
Toulouse,  the  Bishopric  of  Beauvais  and  other  rich  benefices 
which  brought  him  in  60,000  scudi  a  year.^  The  next 
brother,  Gaspard  de  Coligny,  became  the  Colonel  General  of 
Infantry  and  Admiral,  which  gave  him  successively  the  two 
most  important  positions  in  case  of  war  next  that  of  the 
Constable.  In  addition  he  was  made  Governor  of  the  border 
province  of  Picardy.  His  brother,  Francis,  Seigneur 
d'Andelot,  from  which  Seigneurie  he  took  his  usual  title, 
succeeded  his  brother  as  the  Colonel  General  of  Infantry. 

Along  side  of  the  grizzled  Constable,  the  new  King 
placed  high  in  his  favor  another  counsellor,  Charles  of 
Lorraine,  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  then  twenty-two  years 
old.  It  was  his  duty  as  Archbishop  of  Rheims  to  conse- 
crate the  King  and,  through  the  King's  influence  with  the 
Pope,  he  received  the  red  hat  of  a  cardinal  the  day  after 
he  had  performed  that  ceremony.  He  took  the  name  of  the 
Cardinal  of  Guise,  and  drew  the  incomes  of  four  Arch- 
bishoprics, five  bishoprics  and  many  abbeys.  His  younger 
brother,  Francis,  Duke  of  Aumale,  rose  with  him  and 
became  a  member  of  the  Royal  Council.  These  two  young 
favorites  of  the  King  were  of  a  family  which  possessed 
great  ecclesiastical  influence  and  strong  backing  outside 
of  France.  Their  father  Claude,  Duke  of  Guise,  was  a 
brother  of  the  reigning  Duke  of  Lorraine.  Their  uncle. 
Cardinal  John  of  Lorraine,  was  the  wealthiest  ecclesiastic 
in  France,  and  their  sister  Mary,  the  widow  of  James  V  of 
Scotland,  was,  as  dowager  queen,  the  leading  influence  in 
that  country,  nominally  ruled  by  her  infant  daughter  Mary. 
Their  four  brothers  rapidly  accumulated  another  cardinal's 
hat,  the  office  of  Grand  Prior,  and  a  marquisate,  which,  with 
the  Duchy  of  Guise  inherited  by  Francis  at  the  death  of 

»B.  N.  It.  1727f.245. 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  51 

his  father  and  the  Duchy  of  Aumale  which  he  then  handed 
over  to  Claude  Junior,  made  the  family  of  Guise,  although 
inferior  to  the  Montmorency  in  wealth,  their  rivals  in 
power. 

In  the  early  days  of  King  Henry's  reign  there  was,  how- 
ever, no  outward  sign  of  any  rivalry  between  these  two  great 
and  rising  houses,  and  the  Constable  urged  the  red  hat  for 
the  Archbishop  of  Rheims.  But  even  then  a  shrewd  observer 
like  the  Modenese  Ambassador  foresaw  trouble;  for  he 
wrote  within  a  month  of  Henry's  accession,  "The  Constable 
and  the  younger  members  of  the  House  of  Lorraine  every 
day  and  every  hour  give  expression  to  their  mutual  affec- 
tion. I  have  seen  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims  make  court  to 
his  Excellency  and  go  to  meet  him  and  accompany  him  to 
the  table  and  dine  with  him.  Yet  all  are  of  the  opinion  that 
in  the  end  the  House  of  Lorraine  will  beat  him  to  the  ground 
though  it  cannot  happen  at  once."  * 

Besides  the  two  Guise  and  the  Constable,  the  King  also 
put  into  his  new  Council  of  AiBFairs  the  Duke  of  Vendome, 
head  of  the  princely  house  of  Bourbon  which  was  descended 
from  the  youngest  son  of  St.  Louis.  The  house  had  been 
in  the  past  enormously  rich,  Charles,  Constable  of  France 
and  Duke  of  Bourbon,  had  been  considered  the  richest  lord 
in  all  Christendom.  But  his  treason  in  deserting  Francis  I 
for  the  service  of  the  Emperor  because  of  wrong  done  to 
him  by  the  King's  mother,  had  brought  about  the  con- 
fiscation of  the  largest  part  of  the  family  estates.  The 
Duke  of  Vendome  was  therefore  in  the  difficult  position 
of  having  a  very  high  position  and  very  little  money  to 
support  it.  One  brother,  Charles,  had  indeed  two  bishoprics, 
another  was  Count  of  Soissons,  and  the  youngest  was  Prince 
of  Conde,  but  there  was  much  more  title  than  property 
in  this  younger  branch  of  the  Royal  House  of  France.  The 
King  helped  this  by  giving  another  archbishopric  to  the 
ecclesiastical  brother  and  getting  for  him  a  cardinal's  hat. 
For  Antony  he  arranged  a  marriage  with  Jeanne  d'Albret, 

*Arch.  Mod.  ctd.  Whitehead.  32. 


62  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

heiress  of  the  little  kingdom  of  Navarre,  which  lay  astride 
the  Pyrenees,  in  the  western  part  of  France.  The  kingdom 
to  which  Jeanne  was  heiress  was  small,  because  the  best 
part  of  it,  which  lay  south  of  the  mountains,  had  been 
seized  in  1512  by  the  King  of  Spain ;  but  she  was  both  Queen 
and  Princess  of  the  Blood,  for  her  mother  was  the  aunt  of 
Henry  II. 

Besides  these  representatives  of  three  great  families  of 
ancient  lineage,  the  King  put  into  his  privy  council  two 
men  whose  name  was  not  illustrious  and  whose  position 
had  been  very  recently  won,  Jean  de  Saint  Andre  and  his 
son  Jacques.  Jacques'  grandfather  was  the  first  one  of 
the  family  in  the  royal  service.  At  his  death  in  1502  he 
was  counsellor  and  chamberlain  of  Louis  XII.  His  son 
had  continued  in  the  King's  service  and  was  made  in  1530 
chevalier  of  the  order  of  St.  Michel.  Soon  after  he  was 
named  one  of  the  governors  of  the  royal  children,  and 
Henry,  Duke  of  Orleans,  the  future  King,  was  put  especially 
under  his  care.  He  introduced  into  the  service  of  his  young 
charge  his  son  Jacques,  who  was  then  about  twenty  years 
old,  and  a  very  warm  friendship  immediately  began  to  form 
between  the  younger  and  the  older  lad.  The  new  King  put 
both  father  and  son  into  the  privy  council  and,  within  two 
months  of  his  accession  to  the  throne,  he  made  Jacques  a 
chevaHer  of  the  order  of  St.  Michel  and  a  marshal  of 
France. 

It  was  the  general  opinion  at  court  that  Diana  had  an 
overmastering  influence  in  the  new  King's  choice  of  council- 
lors. There  is  reason  to  suspect  that  gossip  gave  Diana 
more  influence  in  these  appointments  than  she  really  had, 
but  the  court  was  quite  right  in  assuming  that  the  Queen 
scarcely  counted  in  the  matter.  Catherine  had  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  placing  on  the  paths  that  led  to  power 
the  men  whose  lives  were  for  many  years  to  be  so  entangled 
with  her  fortunes.  Some  of  them,  like  Montmorency  and 
his  nephews,  she  had  long  considered  her  friends.  Some 
of  them,  like  the  Guise,  who  had  been  too  subservient  to 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  53 

her  rival,  she  ah-eady  regarded  with  carefully  suppressed 
dislike. 

That  the  men  the  King  honored  should,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, pay  more  assiduous  court  to  the  mistress  than 
to  the  wife,  was  to  be  expected.  Francis  I  had  made  gal- 
lantry a  large  part  of  court  life  and  the  influence  of  women, 
and  that  means  largely  the  vicious  influence  of  woman, 
never  decUned  under  his  son  and  grandsons.  The  splendors 
of  the  court  of  the  last  Valois  Kings  were  fairly  soaked  in 
sex  appeal.  That  stout  and  savage  fighting  man,  old 
Marshal  Monluc,  who  had  seen  fifty  years  of  it,  wrote, 
addressing  the  King  about  army  appointments,  "the  first 
comer  who  asks  of  you  the  command  of  a  company  of 
infantry,  without  considering  the  harm  that  may  come  of 
it  to  your  realm,  you  readily  give  it  to  him  only  for  the 
asking  of  the  first  lady  who  begs  you  to  do  it,  because  per- 
haps she  made  herself  agreeable  to  you  at  the  last  baU :  for 
no  matter  what  becomes  of  the  public  business  the  balls 
must  be  made  a  success.  Sire,  these  women  have  entirely 
too  much  influence  at  your  court."  ^ 

To  the  men  he  put  in  authority  the  King  at  once  began 
to  distribute  large  gifts,  for  he  was  possessed  by  a  passion 
for  that  hail  fellow  well  met  sort  of  generosity  which  has 
injured  so  many  kings  and  burdened  so  many  peoples.  To 
Diana  he  gave  immediately  the  right  of  confirmation  of 
all  the  offices  of  the  kingdom,  a  privilege  for  which  he  had 
refused  300,000  francs.  An  arrangement  was  made  by 
which  the  Constable  was  to  receive  300,000  francs  of  back 
pay  and  a  large  sum  was  given  to  the  Count  of  Aumale  to 
pay  his  debts.  The  imperial  ambassador  at  the  French 
Court  wrote  within  a  few  weeks  of  the  accession  of  the 
new  King:  "They  say  here  that  the  King  since  his  acces- 
sion to  this  kingdom  has  given  away  more  than  two  millions 
of  francs  including  gifts  made  to  Diana,  which  will  amount 
to  an  infinite  sum."    This  was  two-fifths  of  the  income  of 

'Monluc,  Comm..  Ill,  460.  Soc.  H.  Fr. 


54  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

the  chief  taxes  of  France  aa  estimated  by  the  Venetian 
Ambassador  a  few  years  before.^ 

The  new  King  showed  a  vigorous  intention  of  getting 
first  hand  information  about  his  kingdom  by  starting  on 
a  tour  of  inspection  of  the  frontier  provinces.  The  point 
of  danger  was  Piedmont,  the  north-western  part  of  Italy, 
which  had  been  conquered  by  Francis  I  twelve  years  before. 
The  King's  journey  to  and  from  its  capital,  Turin,  became 
a  series  of  costly  triumphal  entries,  the  most  splendid  of 
which  was  at  Lyons  in  September,  1548.  Lyons  was  a  place 
where  great  roads  from  Paris,  the  cities  of  the  Rhine, 
Switzerland  and  Rome,  northwest  Italy  and  Spain,  met. 
This  great  trading  and  mail  centre  was  also  the  most  im- 
portant banking  city  of  Central  Europe,  and  its  exchanges 
reached  from  Rome  and  Venice  to  Antwerp  and  London. 

Catherine  met  her  husband  at  Lyons  and  the  wealthy 
city  whose  leading  merchants  and  bankers  were  largely 
Italian,  gave  the  King  and  Queen  one  of  the  most  mag- 
nificent receptions  which  any  King  of  France,  or  indeed 
any  ruler,  had  ever  enjoyed.  It  was  filled,  of  course,  with 
that  rather  pinch-beck  imitation  of  antiquity  which  was 
characteristic  of  those  years  when  the  impulse  of  the 
Renascence  was  spreading  and  at  the  same  time  going 
somewhat  to  seed.  One  of  the  most  admired  spectacles  was 
a  combat  of  twelve  gladiators,  clothed,  six  in  white  satin 
and  the  others  in  crimson  satin,  "their  costumes  made 
according  to  Roman  antiquity."  They  fought  with  two- 
handed  swords  and  the  King  liked  it  so  much  that  he  asked 
to  see  it  again  six  days  later.  Another  number  on  the 
program  was  a  combat  between  galleys  on  the  river, 
exactly  imitated  from  the  galleys  on  the  ancient  Roman 
monuments.  The  city  also  gave  the  King  a  great  spectacle 
entitled  "The  Hunting  of  Diana."  The  relation  to  contem- 
porary history  of  this  scene  from  ancient  mythology  could 
not  escape  any  spectator,  and  it  must  have  been  rather 
hard  for  Queen  Catherine  to  make  her  entry  immediately 

*Inip.  Amb.  Arch.  Belg.  pntd.  Rev.  Hist.  V,  117,  Neg.  Fr.  II,  87. 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  55 

upon  the  heels  of  the  pageant.  The  Spanish  Ambassador 
wrote  to  Prince  Philip,  "I  am  sending  your  Highness  a 
printed  account  of  the  King's  entry  into  Lyons.  I  was 
present  myself  and  I  can  assure  you  that  it  is  accurate.  It 
is  indeed  true  that  little  could  be  seen  when  the  Queen 
made  her  entry,  because  night  came  on.  Her  welcome  was 
very  warm :  and  the  people  say  that,  as  she  is  not  good  look- 
ing, the  King  gave  orders  that  her  pageant  should  be  kept 
back  until  a  late  hour,  so  that  her  Highness  should  pass 
unnoticed."  ^ 

The  court  gossip,  Brantome,  afterwards  gave  a  some- 
what different  account.  "The  Queen  entered  accompanied 
by  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  Marguerite,  the  King's  aunt  and 
by  several  princesses,  great  ladies  and  maids  of  honor.  And 
inasmuch  as  the  day  was  failing  and  the  night  surprised 
that  entry  of  the  Queen,  all  at  once  in  a  moment  one 
saw  the  whole  city  of  Lyons  on  fire  with  flambeaux,  torches, 
lights  in  the  windows,  in  the  shops,  in  the  streets,  so  much 
so  that  it  was  possible  to  see  as  clearly  as  in  the  daytime; 
which  was  very  fortunate  because  the  beams  of  those 
torches  accompanied  those  of  the  eyes  of  those  beautiful 
ladies  and  rivaled  each  other,  as  it  were,  in  making  light  and 
clearness  everywhere." 

It  is  somewhat  doubtful  how  dominant  a  political  influ- 
ence in  the  actual  policy  of  state  was  exercised  by  the  mis- 
tress who  was  thus  publicly  acknowledged  by  the  second 
city  of  the  kingdom.  Contemporary  observers  took  her 
enormous  political  influence  for  granted,  but  her  surviving 
correspondence  does  not  make  it  evident,  and  modem 
writers  are  inclined  to  deny  that  there  are  any  proofs  of  it. 
Whatever  may  have  been  true  of  Diana,  Catherine  con- 
fined herself  at  this  time  entirely  and  with  great  success  to 
the  role  of  submissive  wife,  careful  mother  and  titular  head 
of  a  splendid  court.  But  one  thing  she  did  succeed  in  doing 
which  was  of  a  semi-political  nature.  Henry  began  his  reign 
with  a  dislike  of  Italians.    The  Imperial  Ambassador  wrote, 

*  Brant,  III,  250;  Cal.  Span.  6  Jan.  1549. 


56  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

"An  infinite  number  of  new  Italians  is  coming  to  this  court 
in  a  continuous  stream,  to  offer  their  services  to  the  King, 
and  they  are  received  with  polite  speeches.  But  when  it 
comes  to  giving  them  a  place  on  the  pension  list  it  is  not 
done.  They  don't  even  pay  the  old  pensions  to  those  of 
that  nation  who  have  held  them  a  long  time."  It  was 
probably  due  to  the  quiet  and  persistent  influence  of  Cath- 
erine that  Henry's  original  dislike  of  too  much  Italian  in- 
fluence at  court  was  so  modified  that  he  came  to  employ 
a  large  number  of  them  in  subordinate  civil  positions  as 
well  as  in  the  army;  a  thing  not  in  itself  astonishing  because, 
in  addition  to  the  very  close  commercial,  social,  literary  and 
artistic  relations  between  France  and  Italy  which  had  ex- 
isted for  a  long  while,  he  had  inherited  the  conquests  made 
by  his  father  north  of  the  Alps.  During  the  last  eight 
years  of  his  twelve  years'  reign,  the  court  was  often  com- 
posed of  more  Italians  than  Frenchmen,  a  great  crowd  of 
strangers,  "diplomats,  soldiers,  clergymen,  merchants, 
engineers,  poets,  artists,  couriers,  spies,  fools  and  cour- 
tisans."  ^ 

The  most  conspicuous  of  these  families  who  had  sought 
with  success  their  fortunes  in  France,  were  particular  friends 
with  proteges  of  Catherine.  They  were  the  sons  of  an  aunt 
whose  husband  had  been  a  Florentine  nobleman  of  the 
house  of  Strozzi,  supposed  to  be,  after  the  Fuggers  of 
Augsburg,  the  richest  bankers  in  the  world.  Driven  out 
of  Florence  for  political  reasons,  the  oldest,  Piero  Strozzi, 
arrived  at  the  French  court  soon  after  Catherine's  mar- 
riage, at  the  head  of  a  band  of  harquebusiers  magnificently 
mounted  and  equipped.  Francis  I  took  him  into  his  service, 
but  Piero  never  rose  to  any  very  important  position  under 
him.  At  Francis'  death  he  and  his  three  brothers  were  in 
Italy  and  immediately  started  for  France,  bringing  with 
them  splendid  gifts  for  the  Queen.    The  new  King  made 

*  E.  G.  Lemonnier,  Whitehead,  Imp.  Amb.  June,  1547,  pntd.  Rev.  Hist. 
V,  115.    Romier  (1),  I,  31. 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  67 

him  a  gentleman  of  the  bedchamber  with  a  large  pension 
and,  the  day  after  the  ceremony  of  crowning,  he  received, 
together  with  Coligny,  the  collar  of  the  order  of  St. 
Michel.  He  was  also  appointed  captain-general  of  the 
Itahan  infantry  and  finally  became  a  Marshal  of  France. 
His  brother  Leone  was  made  a  gentleman  of  the  bedchamber 
and  appointed  captain-general  of  the  Royal  galleys.  The 
youngest  brother,  Lorenzo,  was  in  the  church.  He  had 
already  received,  probably  by  Catherine's  favor,  several 
abbeys  in  Piedmont.  The  King  now  gave  him  the  Bishopric 
of  Beziers  and  wrote  at  once  to  the  Pope  asking  for  him 
a  cardinal's  hat.  A  fourth  brother,  Roberto,  became  head 
of  the  great  bank  and  divided  his  time  between  Rome  and 
Venice,  with  occasional  visits  to  Lyons.  The  existence  of 
this  great  Strozzi  bank  suggests,  of  course,  that  there  was 
another  reason  for  the  favor  which  Henry  showed  to  the 
Strozzi  besides  the  influence  of  Catherme.  The  family 
fortune  was  of  great  service  to  him  in  his  finance  and  the 
banker  was  also  able  by  his  position  and  influence  at  Rome 
to  render  great  services  to  the  diplomacy  of  the  King.^ 

It  is  in  connection  with  these  proteges  that  Catherine 
has  left  the  first  authentic  record  of  herself  as  a  most 
submissive  wife.  Leone  Strozzi,  General  of  the  Galleys, 
had  a  desperate  quarrel  with  a  brother-in-law  of  the  Con- 
stable who  was  acting  Admiral.  Leone  got  the  suspicion 
that  his  enemy  had  hired  one  of  his  own  followers,  a  man 
whom  he  had  ransomed  from  slavery,  to  murder  him.  He 
put  the  suspected  follower  on  board  his  galley  and  tortured 
him  until  he  compelled  him  to  say  that  this  accusation  was 
true.  He  then  stabbed  him  and  threw  him  overboard. 
Soon  after  he  deserted  the  fleet  with  two  galleys  and  took 
refuge  at  Malta.  When  she  heard  of  it,  Catherine  wrote  to 
her  husband  the  first  of  her  few  letters  to  him  which  have 
survived. 

*Romier  (1),  etc.,  Chap.  IV. 


58  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

"To  My  Lord  the  King: 
"My  Lord: 

"I  have  heard  by  Brese  that  which  it  has  pleased  you  to 
command  him  to  say  to  me  and  I  assure  you  that  I  have  never 
had  anything  trouble  me  more,  not  for  his  sake  unless  it  is  to 
think  that  he  is  drowned;  because  the  greatest  pleasure  that  I 
could  have  would  be  to  hear  that  it  had  pleased  God  to  drown  him 
when  he  took  that  resolution,  but  to  see  the  fault  which  he  has 
committed  in  your  service  at  the  very  moment  when  I  was  hoping 
that  he  would  do  you  as  great  a  service  as  any  servitor  you  had. 
.  .  .  But  My  Lord  I  beg  you  very  humbly  that,  although  he  is 
so  unfortunate,  he  may  not  be  able  to  make  his  family  unfor- 
tunate, because  I  am  sure  that  there  isn't  one  of  them  who  doesn't 
want  him  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  who,  if  he  could  get  hold 
of  him,  wouldn't  make  of  him  an  example  for  all  those  who 
should  ever  wish  to  do  anything  like  this — and  principally  his 
brother  Piero,  whom  I  recommend  to  you  My  Lord.  ...  I  beg 
you  to  forgive  me  if  I  bore  you  with  so  long  a  letter  and  excuse 
me  when  you  remember  the  chagrin  I  feel  that  a  person  of  whom 
I  have  so  often  talked  to  you  and  who  is  what  he  is  to  me, 
should  have  failed  you.  And  I  do  not  see  anything  which  can 
free  me  of  that  chagrin  except  to  hear  that  God  has  caused  him 
to  drown,  and  that  on  account  of  all  his  wickedness  I  may  not  be 
removed  from  your  good  favor;  to  which  very  humbly  I  recom- 
mend myself,  praying  Our  Lord  to  give  you  a  very  good  and  long 
life  and  good  success  in  your  affairs. 

Your  very  hmnble  and  very  obedient  wife, 

"Caterine."  ^ 

This  affair  evidently  troubled  Catherine  very  much  both 
as  a  wife  and  as  a  cousin.  She  wrote  another  similar  letter 
to  the  King  about  her  favorite  cousin  Piero  and  she  wrote 
three  letters  to  the  Constable  about  the  matter.  She  tried 
to  get  the  Constable  to  ask  the  King  to  let  Leone  come 
to  Court  and  plead  in  his  own  defense,  because  she  has 
lain  awake  night  after  night,  tormented  with  the  thought 
of  what  has  happened  and  afraid  that  Leone,  driven  to 
despair,  will  add  to  the  crime  of  his  desertion  by  taking 
service  with  the  King's  enemies,  which  would  be  a  last  blow 
she  could  not  bear.    "So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  my  gossip, 

*  Letts.  I,  45. 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  59 

you  know  with  what  affection  I  love  the  King  and  his 
service;  .  .  .  and  if  I  thought  that  the  King  would  take 
this  evilly,  I  should  rather  be  dead  than  to  ask  him  for  it, 
.  .  .  Therefore  I  pray  you  to  talk  to  him  about  it  .  .  .  and 
to  tell  me  when  I  shall  have  the  good  luck  to  see  the  King."  ^ 

Two  letters  of  Leone,  written  one  to  his  brother  and 
the  other  to  a  reverend  friend  to  excuse  himself,  give  a 
striking  self-drawn  picture  of  unspeakable  pride,  contempt 
for  law  and  reckless  violence  in  vengeance;  the  passions 
which  had  been  bred  to  such  an  undiluted  strain  in  the 
factional  politics  of  the  Italian  cities.  He  says  this  trouble 
has  come  to  him  because  of  the  desire  of  the  Constable  to 
put  some  insult  upon  him;  a  desire  of  which  he  has  known 
a  long  time.  "As  to  what  you  tell  me  that  many  blame  me 
for  the  death  of  Corso,  I  answer  that  it  isn't  a  thing  worth 
talking  about,  that  I  thought  he  was  a  traitor  to  me  and 
I  punished  him  deservedly  more  quickly  than  I  would  have 
wished,  because  those  who  were  engaged  with  him  in  the 
crime  of  this  betrayal  wanted  to  take  him  out  of  my  hands 
by  force."  ...  "I  took  the  position  that  there  was  no  need 
to  get  such  a  fellow  before  other  judges."  He  then  expatiates 
again  and  again  upon  the  idea  that  the  real  object  of  the 
judicial  action  against  him  was  to  investigate  his  personal 
affairs,  "which  are  nobody's  business  but  his  own."  ^  Two 
years  later  Leone  Strozzi  made  his  peace  with  the  King  and 
was  restored  to  the  royal  service  as  general  of  galleys  in 
the  waters  of  Italy. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that  the  affection  for 
her  husband  expressed  in  these  letters  was  in  any  sense 
feigned.  In  exchange  for  a  small  part  of  her  husband's 
heart  Catherine  gave  him  all  hers.  Her  letters  show  also 
that  she  was  a  most  careful  and  loving  mother.  Of  the 
hundred  and  fifty  odd  letters  which  have  survived  from  the 
first  six  years  when  she  was  queen,  twenty-five  were  written 
to  d'Humieres  or  his  wife.    D'Humieres  was  perhaps  the 

*  Letts.  I,  46. 
'Principi,  I,  107. 


60  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

leading  noble  of  Picardy,  a  chevalier  of  the  order  of  St. 
Michel  who  had  served  as  lieutenant  general  of  the  King 
in  Dauphiny,  Saxony  and  Piedmont.  He  had  been  chosen 
just  before  the  death  of  Francis  I  as  the  governor  of  Cath- 
erine's children  and  they  were  continued  under  his  charge. 
These  letters  of  Catherine  to  him  show  a  constant  solicitude 
for  her  children.  The  Queen  begs  the  Governor  or  his  wife 
to  send  her  news  as  often  as  possible,  for  it  is  the  greatest 
pleasure  she  has  to  hear  of  her  children.  She  gives  careful 
directions  about  their  health  and  wants  them  no  longer 
lodged  in  the  chateau  but  in  the  pavilion,  because  the 
chateau  is  too  near  the  water.  When  her  little  girl  Claude 
is  ill,  she  writes  that  she  and  the  King  both  think  that  the 
child  ought  to  be  given  bread  soaked  in  water  and  not 
bouillon,  because  it  would  be  better  and  more  nourishing 
for  her.  She  repeatedly  asked  to  have  her  children's  pic- 
tures painted  and  sent  to  her,  and  she  insists  one  time  that 
the  painter  shall  paint  the  side  of  the  face  which  he  does  not 
usually  paint,  in  order  that  she  may  see  how  they  look 
from  that  side. 

The  King  shared  this  solicitude  for  his  children,  and 
the  Constable  joined  his  friend  in  watching  over  them, 
writing  regular  letters  about  them  to  his  cousin,  D'Humieres. 
He  helped  to  choose  nurses  and  doctors.  As  he  was  the 
father  of  eleven  children,  he  was  able  to  write  with  author- 
ity about  what  to  do  when  they  had  the  measles.  He 
charges  them  to  take  great  care  that  the  little  Dauphin  who 
was  beginning  to  be  afflicted  already  with  the  trouble  in  his 
ear  which  finally  killed  him,  should  not  go  out  in  cold 
weather.  When  they  are  traveling  or  about  to  travel,  he 
provided  horses  and  coaches  and  litters.  He  even  sent  down 
his  wife's  dressmaker  to  make  corsages  for  the  little  princess. 
In  short,  he  played  to  perfection  the  combined  part  of 
grandfather  and  bachelor  uncle.  This  solicitude  for  the 
children  on  the  part  of  the  parents  and  the  old  family 
friend  was  shared  to  the  fullest  extent  by  the  mistress. 
Diana  carried  on  a  constant  correspondence  with  D'Hum- 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  61 

ieres  and  his  wife,  signing  herself  "Your  perfect  good  ally 
and  friend,"  in  which  she  gives  the  most  minute  directions 
about  their  care. 

Of  Catherine's  remaining  letters  of  this  period,  a  dozen 
are  to  the  Duke  of  Guise  or  his  wife,  twenty  odd  to  the 
Constable  or  his  wife,  seven  to  the  Cardinal  of  Bourbon 
and  seven  to  her  husband.  Seventy-five  were  written  to 
Italians,  the  bulk  of  them  to  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of 
Florence.  Of  these  Italian  letters,  about  one-fifth  are 
letters  of  friendship  or  compliment;  the  other  four-fifths 
seek  some  favor  for  Catherine's  friends  or  adherents. 
Some  of  them  may  be  of  the  sort  described  later  (1560) 
to  her  daughter  the  Queen  of  Spain.  "My  daughter,  I  am 
often  importuned  to  write  on  behalf  of  people  I  don't  know 
who  want  positions  in  your  household,  and  I  can't  always 
refuse  because  of  my  relations  to  those  who  speak  to  me 
about  it.  I  drop  you  this  line  to  say  that  whenever  you 
receive  such  letters  from  me,  unless  they  are  written  in  my 
own  hand,  don't  pay  any  attention  to  them  and  do  just  as 
you  would  have  done  if  I  had  not  written."  ^ 

Catherine's  great  personal  tact,  her  devotion  to  her 
husband  and  her  children  were  not  without  their  reward. 
In  the  middle  of  the  reign  the  Venetian  Ambassador  wrote 
of  her,  "The  modesty  of  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  is  very 
praiseworthy.  She  is  a  young  woman  of  thirty-five  years 
but  not  very  pretty.  She  has  the  big  eyes  and  the  thick 
lips  of  the  Medici,  and  resembles  very  much  her  great 
uncle.  Pope  Leo.  She  loves  the  King  her  husband  as  much 
as  can  be  imagined.  She  dresses  rather  severely  and 
modestly.  She  is  a  good  Catholic  and  very  religious  and 
when  the  King  is  in  camp  she  dresses  in  black  and  in  mourn- 
ing and  has  her  court  do  the  same  and  exhorts  every  one 
to  make  the  most  devoted  prayers,  praying  the  Lord  God 
for  the  happiness  and  the  prosperity  of  the  absent  King."  * 

Four  years  later  another  ambassador  reported  of  her 

'Neg.  Fr.  II,p.499. 
»Rel.  I,  2,  p.  286. 


62  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

as  follows:  "The  Queen  has  born  ten  children  in  thirteen 
years.  She  has  a  very  broad  face,  is  of  an  excessively  kind 
nature  and  tries  to  please  everyone  and  especially  the 
Italians  as  much  as  is  possible,  and  she  is  so  much  loved, 
not  only  by  all  the  court  but  by  all  the  kingdom,  that  it 
is  almost  incredible.  She  loves  the  King  above  every  other 
thing,  so  much  so  that  the  object  of  all  her  thoughts  seems 
to  be  nothing  else  than  how  to  please  his  Majesty  and  to 
be  with  him.  For  this  reason,  without  having  any  regard 
either  to  the  labor  or  to  any  sort  of  fatigue,  she  follows 
him  always  wherever  she  can.  This  love  is  returned  by 
the  King,  His  Majesty  having  always  given  her  not  only 
all  the  honors  and  demonstrations  of  respect  which  are 
fitting  for  a  queen,  but  also  always  made  her  the  sharer  of 
all  his  secrets.  She  loves  very  much  Marshal  Strozzi,  who 
is  her  cousin,  and  she  has  favored  him  always  as  much  as 
has  been  possible."  ^ 

Scarcely  was  the  new  King  seated  upon  the  throne 
before  he  found  himself  urged  toward  a  new  war  both  by 
his  patriotic  ambition  and  his  friendships.  He  had  a  very 
strong  desire  to  recover  for  France  her  two  ports  which 
England  held,  Calais  and  Boulogne.  In  addition  his  young 
favorite,  the  Duke  of  Aumale,  wanted  to  turn  the  French 
arms  toward  Scotland,  where  his  sister,  Mary  of  Guise,  the 
widow  of  James  V,  was  ruling  in  the  name  of  her  little 
daughter,  Mary  Queen  of  Scots.  It  had  been  a  plan  of 
Henry  VIII,  inherited  from  his  father,  to  unite  Scotland  and 
England.  The  council  he  had  chosen  before  his  death  to 
rule  England  in  the  name  of  his  little  son,  Edward  VI,  hoped 
to  carry  out  that  plan  by  marrying  the  young  prince  to  the 
little  Queen.  The  French  heiress  preferred  a  French  aUi- 
ance  and  independence  and  France  was  of  course  anxious  to 
encourage  this  preference.  From  the  very  beginning  of 
Henry's  reign,  therefore,  a  stream  of  French  troops  poured 
into  Scotland,  though  it  was  not  until  the  middle  of  1549 
that  war  was  actually  declared.    Meantime,  to  avoid  all 

»Rel.  I,  2,  p.  430. 


QUEEN  OF  FRANCE  63 

danger  of  her  being  carried  off  to  England,  the  six  year  old 
queen  was  brought  back  to  France,  where  she  became  the 
comrade  and  companion  of  the  royal  children.  She  was 
already  engaged  to  be  married  to  Francis,  the  little  Dauphin, 
and  the  King  wrote  that  she  must  always  precede  the  other 
children  as  the  future  Queen  of  France,  and  one  who  was 
already  "a  crowned  Queen."  The  parents  were  delighted 
to  hear  that  the  boy,  who  was  six  weeks  younger,  gave  a 
most  friendly  reception  to  his  little  fiancee.  A  little  later 
the  Venetian  Ambassador  wrote:  "The  Dauphin  loves  her 
Most  Serene  Highness,  the  little  Queen  of  Scotland,  very 
much.  She  is  a  very  pretty  little  girl.  Sometimes  it  happens 
that,  with  their  arms  around  each  other,  they  go  away  into 
a  corner  of  the  apartments  so  that  no  one  can  hear  their 
childish  secrets."  ^ 

The  little  Queen  of  Scots  brought  trouble  in  her  train. 
She  had  a  Scotch  governess,  Lady  Fleming,  "a  very  pretty 
little  woman,"  who  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  King. 
The  Constable  encouraged  the  affair  in  the  hope  of  break- 
ing the  influence  of  Diana.  The  thing  reached  a  pass  where 
the  scandal  could  no  longer  be  concealed,  the  wife  and 
mistress  united  to  drive  the  woman  from  court  in  disgrace 
and  the  mistress  turned  in  fury  on  the  Constable,  who  soon 
succeeded  in  making  his  peace  with  the  Queen  apparently 
on  the  plea  that  his  plot  had  been  directed  against  Diana 
and  not  against  her.^ 

The  war  with  England  did  not  long  continue  after  the 
child  whose  hand  was  its  prize  was  safe  in  France.  It  was 
ended  by  the  peace  of  1550,  which  surrendered  Boulogne 
to  France.^ 

^Baschet  ctd.,  486, 
"Baschet  ctd.,  440. 
•Rymer,  VI,  182. 


CHAPTER  y 

THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER 

The  success  of  this  war  only  whetted  the  young  King's 
appetite  for  more.  Ever  since  as  a  little  boy  he  had  been 
kept  in  Spain  as  a  hostage  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  father's 
treaty,  he  had  cherished  a  deep  hatred  for  Charles  V,  nor 
was  it  "possible  to  wish  so  much  evil  to  any  enemy  as  he 
always  wishes  for  him.  This  infirmity  is  so  natural  that 
no  doctor  will  ever  cure  him  of  it  except  the  death  or  ruin 
of  his  enemy."  ^  He  saw  now  a  chance  for  a  partial  ven- 
geance. Just  before  Henry  had  acceded  to  the  throne,  the 
Emperor  Charles  V  had  defeated  the  Protestant  princes  of 
Germany  at  the  Battle  of  Muhlberg  and  still  kept  their 
two  leaders  in  close  captivity.  In  face  of  the  suppression 
of  their  religion  and  their  independent  authority  by  this 
too  powerful  master,  they  turned  to  Henry  II  for  help. 
Devoted  and  orthodox  Catholic  as  he  was,  he  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  league  with  them;  even  as  his  father  had  leagued 
with  the  Turk  against  the  great  enemy  of  their  house.  In 
the  beginning  of  1552  a  treaty  was  formed  between  a  num- 
ber of  the  German  states  and  the  King  of  France.  He 
promised  them  subsidies  and  in  return  they  surrendered  to 
him  the  cities  of  Metz,  Toul  and  Verdun,  which  he  was 
to  hold  as  vicar  of  the  empire.  "This  renewal  of  the 
ancient  friendship  between  the  Germans  and  the  Gauls 
which  had  once  made  them  masters  of  Hungary,  Transyl- 
vania, Bohemia,  Poland,  Denmark  and  of  all  Italy,  was 
intended  to  defend  the  state  of  Germany  against  the  Em- 
peror Charles  V,  who  by  his  tyrannical  exaction  has  made 
himself  formidable  to  all  the  Empire."  ^ 

»Rel.  I,  2,  p.  286. 

'Rel.  I,  2,  p.  286,  Babutin  404,  De  Thou  II,  80. 

64 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  65 

While  the  armies  were  getting  ready  to  open  hostilities, 
Catherine,  who  was  traveling  to  be  near  her  husband,  was 
taken  seriously  ill  at  Joinville  with  the  purples,  a  terrifying 
epidemic  disease  whose  most  marked  symptom  was  an  erup- 
tion of  red  patches  all  over  the  body.  Her  tongue  swelled 
so  much  that  she  could  no  longer  speak,  and  it  was  thought 
at  one  time  that  she  was  dead.  The  sad  news  was  already 
spread  abroad  and  almost  all  her  household  had  abandoned 
her  except  "the  Cardinal  of  Chatillon,  who  on  account  of 
the  sincere  and  respectful  affection  which  he  had  for  the 
Queen,  remained  beside  her  bed  with  Diana  of  Poitiers,  who 
was  much  concerned  for  the  life  of  that  princess  because 
the  King  might  grow  cold  towards  her  if  he  married  another 
woman.  In  the  end,  bleeding  of  the  tongue  restored  the 
Queen's  power  of  speaking,  but  the  King  remained  in  the 
city  until  she  was  entirely  well."  ^ 

Before  he  left  Paris  he  had  assembled  the  Parlement, 
which  was  the  chief  court  of  his  kingdom,  to  explain  his 
policy  and  what  he  proposed  to  do  in  Germany.  He  de- 
clared that  he  left  the  regency  to  the  Queen,  and  Catherine 
thus  got  her  first  taste  of  handling  large  affairs.  She  took 
her  duties  very  seriously,  as  the  following  extracts  from  her 
letters  show: 

"To  THE  Cardinal  of  Bourbon: 
"My  Cousin: 

"I  am  informed  that  at  Paris  there  are  certain  preachers  who 
have  nothing  else  to  do  but  talk  of  matters  of  state  to  rouse  the 
people  to  mutiny;  against  whom  we  ought  to  guard  ourselves 
more  carefully  than  against  fire  and  pestilence  and  among  others 
two  especially.  One  is  a  Cordelier  who  preached  in  Notre  Dame 
a  sermon  tending  toward  sedition,  expressing  discontent  with  the 
undertaking  of  the  King  and  even  of  his  alliance  with  the  German 
princes  and  the  aid  he  is  giving  them;  .  .  .  which  words  are  a 
suflScient  proof  of  the  arrogance  of  such  preachers  who  put  their 
own  judgment  above  the  prudence,  goodness  and  religion  of  their 
King  and  his  council.  The  other  is  a  Jacobin  who  preached  at 
St.  Paul's  on  the  text,  'The  leaders  of  the  priests  made  a  council 

*De  Thou  II,  60,  Rabutin  406,  Guiffret  97. 


66  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

against  Jesus/  saying  it  was  not  according  to  the  counsel  of  God 
to  grant  the  King  a  tax  of  twenty  francs  a  steeple  to  be  levied 
on  the  buildings  and  jewels  of  the  churches  .  .  .  and  not  the  way 
to  perpetuate  his  title  of  'the  Most  Christian  King.'  You  under- 
stand how  easy  it  is  for  a  people  under  such  pretense  of  zeal  and 
devotion  to  be  roused  to  tumult;  which  is  easier  to  stop  at  the 
beginning  than  afterward.  Therefore  I  have  written  you  imme- 
diately, as  soon  as  I  was  informed,  waiting  only  to  confer  with 
the  Admiral  and  others  left  here  by  the  King  near  me,  begging 
you,  as  affectionately  as  I  can,  to  consult  at  once  with  the  gentle- 
men of  the  council  established  there  and  to  take  prompt  action. 
None  could  be  better  than  to  arrest  secretly  the  said  preachers 
without  any  public  scandal  and  put  them  in  a  safe  place  until 
the  King  can  send  word  what  he  wants  done." 

The  Queen  goes  on  to  say  that  other  preachers  should 
be  trained  to  refute  these  attacks  by  setting  "skilfully" 
before  the  people  arguments  in  defense  of  the  King's  course, 
which  the  letter  suggests  in  some  detail.  Eleven  days  later 
the  Cardinal  answered  that  the  offending  Cordelier  had 
publicly  revoked  his  sermon  in  Notre  Dame.  The  Jacobin 
had  fled  the  city,  and  the  archers  were  hard  on  his  heels  with 
orders  to  follow  him  if  need  be  to  his  convent  at  Orleans.^ 

"10th  of  June,  1552. 
"To  THE  King: 

"Monseigneur: 

"Fumel  has  arrived  here  according  to  your  orders.  .  .  .  We 

didn't  want  to  keep  him,  but  before  he  started  back  I  wanted 

him  to  appear  in  your  council  where  he  could  hear  an  account 

of  the  diligence  we  have  displayed  in  the  matter  of  furnishing 

your  provisions.  .  .  .  We  arranged  yesterday  another  bargain 

for  twenty  thousand  loaves  of  bread  a  day,  at  the  same  time 

informing  you,  Monseigneur,  that  all  those  who  have  arrived 

these  last  days  from  your  camp,  say  they  have  met  a  large 

number  of  wagons  carrying  bread,  flour,  and  wine,  not  only  men 

in  the  state  service,  but  also  volunteer  merchants,  and  I  hope 

that,  by  the  order  which  v/e  have  given  to  this  matter,  to  the  very 

best  of  our  abihty,  you  will  have  reason  to  be  contented;  for  now 

everybody  in  the  company  is  attending  to  business  and  they 

could  not,  it  seems  to  me,  do  better  than  they  are  now  doing."  ^ 

^  Letts.  I,  50. 
=■  Letts.  I,  558. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  67 

The  zeal  with  which  the  Queen  threw  herself  into  her 
new  function  of  Commissary  General  of  the  army,  is  again 
suggested  by  the  following  letter: 

"20th  of  May,  1552. 
"To  MY  Gossip,  Mons.  the  Constable: 
"My  Gossip: 

"You  will  see  by  the  letter  which  I  am  writing  to  the  King 
that  I  have  not  lost  any  time  in  learning  the  office  and  duties 
of  a  commissary  of  provisions,  in  which,  if  everybody  does  his 
duty  and  carries  out  and  fulfills  what  he  has  promised,  I  assure 
you  that  I  shall  soon  become  prime  mistress,  for  from  one  hour 
to  another  I  don't  study  anything  but  that.  I  am  impressing 
and  importuning  everyone  and  I  will  not  spare  any  trouble  until 
I  know  that  the  King  and  you  are  content."  ^ 

That  Catherine  was  less  successful  in  this  new  office  of 
Commissary  General  than  she  hoped  to  be,  and  that  her 
lack  of  experience  caused  her  to  make  some  elementary 
blunders,  is  suggested  by  the  following  letter,  written  like 
the  others  at  Chalons,  where  she  had  taken  up  her  residence 
because  it  was  the  base  of  supplies  for  the  army. 

"17th  of  June  1552. 
"To  MY  Gossip,  Mons.  the  Constable: 
"My  Gossip: 

"I  got  your  letter  yesterday  very  late  by  which  you  inform 
me  that  if  Bourran,  Pelocquin,  Pioche  and  the  Receiver  de  Vigny, 
do  what  they  promise,  you  would  have  enough  provisions  without 
the  addition  of  the  bargain  which  has  lately  been  made  with 
Jean  Prevost.  I  advise  you,  my  gossip,  that  we  made  the  con- 
tract on  account  of  the  fear  which  we  have  had  that  the  King 
might  lack  provisions.  .  .  .  Nevertheless  some  honest  expedient 
will  be  found  to  get  out  of  the  affair  and  break  the  contract  with 
the  said  Prevost.  ...  In  addition,  my  gossip,  I  found  it  ex- 
ceedingly strange,  that  of  all  the  horses  and  carts  which  have 
carried  provisions,  not  a  single  one  has  arrived  at  the  camp.  And 
I  cannot  imagine  where  the  said  provisions  could  have  been 
carried.  As  for  understanding  where  the  failure  is,  you  must  see, 
my  gossip,  that  it  can  be  much  better  discovered  at  camp  where 
the  said  provisions  have  been  carried,  than  it  can  be  here.    It 

•Letts.  I,  56. 


68  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

seems  to  me  that  Bourran  is  wrong  in  having  said  to  Blesneau 
that  he  hasn't  seen  any  provisions  where  he  is,  because  we  have 
received  several  letters  from  him  making  mention  of  the  fact  that 
the  said  provisions  have  been  brought  there;  which,  as  you  know, 
could  not  fly  away.  Nevertheless,  my  gossip,  following  your 
advice  I  shall  give  orders  that,  from  now  on,  the  said  provisions 
shall  be  transported  in  the  charge  of  people  who  will  be  respon- 
sible for  them  and  who  will  put  them  in  the  hands  of  the  com- 
missaries of  provisions  who  are  there;  from  whom  they  will  de- 
mand a  receipt.  .  .  . 

"My  gossip,  I  thank  you  very  much  for  the  news  you  give 
me  of  the  excellent  health  of  the  King  and  also  that  the  migraine 
which  he  had  didn't  last  very  long.  I  beg  you  to  do  me  the 
kindness  to  continue  to  send  me  news."  ^ 

The  health  of  the  King  did  not  remain  good.  He  shared 
all  the  hardships  of  the  campaign,  even  sleeping  in  the 
trenches  with  the  soldiers.  The  heat  was  extreme  and  some 
of  the  marches  forced.  Like  a  number  of  his  captains  he 
became  ill  and  was  obliged  to  retire  from  the  front  for  rest 
at  the  city  of  Sedan.  Catherine  at  once  moved  forward 
from  Chalons  to  Sedan  and  stayed  with  her  husband  to  take 
care  of  him  until  he  was  able  to  rejoin  the  army.  She  did 
not  have  much  time  to  learn  her  job  of  commissary  gen- 
eral for,  in  the  middle  of  the  summer,  at  the  end  of  a  cam- 
paign which  added  to  France  the  cities  of  Metz,  Toul  and 
Verdun,  Henry,  after  watering  the  horses  of  his  army  in 
the  Rhine  as  a  symbol  of  triumph,  dismissed  a  part  of  it 
and  divided  the  rest  into  garrisons.^ 

The  Emperor  Charles  V  did  not  delay  in  making  his 
counterstroke.  He  released  the  two  Protestant  electors 
from  prison  and  made  peace  with  the  German  princes.  Then 
he  assembled  a  large  army  and  advanced  in  the  month  of 
August  to  retake  the  city  of  Metz.  But  after  four  months' 
siege,  his  army  was  suffering  so  from  disease  and  bad 
weather  that  he  was  obliged  to  retreat.  It  was  reported 
that  of  sixty  thousand  men  with  which  he  began  the  siege, 

*  Letts.  X,  8. 

»De  Thou  II,  74,  Rabutin  426,  Brant.  Ill,  267. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  69 

only  twelve  thousand  finally  succeeded  in  finishing  their 
retreat.  These  figures  are  doubtless  exaggerated;  but  cer- 
tain it  is  that  the  condition  of  the  retreating  army  was  most 
miserable.  "The  soldiers  were  in  such  great  misery  and 
poverty  that  I  cannot  doubt  that  the  animals  themselves, 
even  the  most  cruel,  would  have  had  some  pity  for  these 
miserable  soldiers  crawling,  staggering  along  the  roads  in 
utter  want,  often  dying  beside  the  hedges  or  at  the  edge 
of  the  thickets  to  become  food  for  dogs  and  birds  of  prey." 
Relieved  of  her  labors  as  regent  of  the  kingdom,^  labors 
which  had  included  interviewing  ambassadors,  writing  to 
the  Parlement  at  Paris,  advising  municipalities  and  many 
other  things,  Catherine  occupied  herself  with  the  care  of 
her  children,  as  the  following  letter  shows : 

"To  MY  Gossip,  Mons.  the  Constable: 
"My  Gossip: 

"Mons.  Nicole  Allamanni  being  about  to  start  toward  the 
King  and  you,  has  begged  me  to  give  him  a  letter  of  recommen- 
dation, which  I  am  very  willing  to  do,  and  I  beg  you  to  be  willing 
to  listen  to  what  he  has  to  say  to  you.  So  far  as  news  about  me 
is  concerned,  I  arrived  Wednesday  in  the  evening  at  this  place 
where  I  have  found  Madame  [the  King's  sister  Margarite]  very 
happy  and  growing  stout,  and  my  little  daughter  so  well  that, 
although  she  has  grown  quite  thin  and  a  little  feeble,  you  would 
say  to  look  at  her  face  and  to  hear  her  speak  that  she  hadn't 
been  sick  at  all.  I  won't  write  a  longer  letter  after  recommending 
myself  to  you  and  praying  God  to  give  you  what  you  desire. 
"Your  good  gossip  and  friend, 

"Catemne." 

Her  most  intimate  friends  seem  to  have  been  the 
Duchess  of  Montmorency  (wife  of  the  Constable)  and  the 
young  Duchess  of  Guise,  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Ferrara 
and  granddaughter  of  Louis  XII  of  France.  She  evidently 
wrote  to  them  frequently,  pleasant  friendly  letters,  and  she 
was  apparently  anxious  not  to  show  more  attention  to  one 
than  to  the  other.  For  it  can  hardly  be  accidental  that  she 
generally  wrote  to  both  of  them  on  the  same  day  or  within 

^Rabutin.  405. 


70  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

a  couple  of  days.  Some  of  these  letters  are  mere  notes 
asking  for  news,  others  are  inquiries  about  the  health  of  a 
member  O'f  the  family  who  is  ill,  some  of  them  enclose  let- 
ters which  have  come  from  the  front,  or  news  which  has 
arrived  from  the  King  or  their  husbands.  Some  of  them 
simply  express  affection,  as  for  instance  this  phrase  in  a 
letter  to  the  Duchess  of  Montmorency,  "I  wish  you  were 
here  and  if  you  were  I  would  take  pains  to  keep  you  here. 
Send  me  word  I  pray  you  when  you  are  going  to  come."  ^ 
Or  this  to  the  Duchess  of  Guise: 

"My  Cousin: 

"I  was  the  angriest  woman  in  the  world  to  hear  that  you  still 
will  not  come.  I  wish  you  had  at  least  passed  through  here, 
because  I  have  great  fear  of  not  seeing  you  for  a  long  time.  I 
beg  you  to  send  me  the  real  word  as  to  when  I  shall  have  that 
pleasure.  Meanwhile  at  least  -I  hope  that  you  will  often  send 
me  news  of  yourself."  ^ 

She  was  particularly  anxious  about  the  health  of  her 
friends,  as  this  letter  to  the  Duchess  of  Guise  shows: 

"My  Cousin: 

"I  send  you  this  lackey  to  know  how  you  are  and  I  beg  you 
that  although  you  do  not  feel  any  more  sickness,  you  will  not 
on  that  account  stop  taking  care  of  yourself.  Don't  go  out  too 
soon  for  this  year  the  measles  are  very  dangerous,  if  one  doesn't 
take  care  of  oneself  and  doesn't  take  medicine  at  the  end.  You 
have  seen  it  by  the  case  of  my  son  who  didn't  take  any  and  who 
died  of  it,  and  his  sister  is  cured  since  she  has  taken  it  and 
without  that  they  sent  me  word  that  she  would  have  been  in 
great  danger.  Therefore  I  beg  you  to  think  well  about  this  and 
don't  fail  to  take  medicine  before  you  leave  your  room."  ^ 

This  solicitude  about  her  sick  relatives  and  friends,  to- 
gether with  an  unmistakable  liking  for  playing  the  part  of 
the  family  physician,  remained  characteristic  of  Catherine 
even  up  to  the  end  of  her  life. 

*  Letts.  I,  76. 
'Letts.  I,  82. 
'  Letts.  I.  39. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  71 

But  after  all,  neither  the  health  of  her  children  nor  of 
her  friends  ever  gave  the  Queen  so  much  concern  as  to  be 

without  news  of  her  husband.  During  one  of  his  absences 
for  military  reasons,  she  wrote  to  the  Constable  the  follow- 
ing letter: 

"My  Gossip: 

"I  saw  last  night  what  you  wrote  me  about  my  sickness,  but 
I  must  tell  you  that  it  was  not  the  water  which  made  me  sick, 
but  not  having  any  news  of  the  King;  for  I  think  that  he  and  you 
and  all  the  rest  don't  think  any  more  that  I  am  alive.  Just  be 
sure  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  that  can  do  me  so  much 
harm  as  to  think  that  I  have  lost  his  good  grace  or  that  he  forgets 
me.  Therefore,  my  gossip,  if  you  want  me  to  live  and  to  be  well, 
write  to  me  as  often  as  you  can  and  send  me  repeatedly  news  of 
him.  That  is  the  best  regime  for  my  health  which  I  can  have. 
Gossip,  everybody  tells  me  that  I  should  go  to  Mezieres,  but  I 
don't  dare  to  do  it  because  I  have  no  conmiandment  from  the 
King.  If  it's  true  that  he  wants  me  to  do  it,  make  him  send  me 
word  and  I  will  put  this  down  on  the  list  with  all  the  many 
other  things  that  you  have  done  for  me.  I  recommend  myself 
to  your  good  grace. 

"Your  good  gossip  and  friend,  Caterine."  ^ 

The  successful  defense  of  Metz,  heroically  held  by  the 
Duke  of  Guise,  and  the  disastrous  retreat  of  the  Imperial 
army,  were  the  last  striking  events  of  the  war.  It  lingered 
along,  inflicting  terrible  suffering  upon  the  people  of  the 
border,  but  without  coming  to  any  decisive  action.  Armies 
of  fifty  to  sixty  thousand  men  (which  were  considered  huge 
in  those  days)  were  raised  on  both  sides,  but  they  seemed 
unwilling  to  put  it  to  the  hazard  of  a  battle.  The  Emperor 
was  crippled  with  gout  and  worn  out  by  the  terrible  labors 
which  he  had  endured  for  years.  He  longed  for  rest  and 
he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  divide  his  power  between  his 
brother  and  his  son,  to  resign  all  his  crowns  and  to  retire 
to  a  monastery  to  prepare  for  death.  On  the  other  hand, 
Henry  II  was  steadily  forced  toward  peace  by  the  great 
financial  exhaustion  of  the  kingdom.    Francis  I  had,  indeed, 

*  Letts.  I,  66. 


72  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

left  some  cash  in  the  treasury,  but  the  long  years  of  war  and 
the  enormous  expenses  of  his  court  had  made  taxes  very 
high.  Henry  II  was  an  exceedingly  bad  manager  of  state 
funds.  The  great  contemporary  publicist,  Bodin,  wrote  in  his 
Republic:  "Francis  I  did  not  give  away  as  much  money  in 
his  reign  of  thirty-two  years  as  his  successor  in  two  years." 
.  .  .  "There  was  an  ordinance  of  Francis  I  confirmed  by  his 
successor  which  provided  that  there  should  be  four  keys 
of  the  great  chest  of  the  treasury,  of  which  the  King  should 
keep  one  and  the  others  should  be  in  the  hands  of  com- 
missaries appointed  by  him  and  that  all  distributions  of 
money  should  take  place  by  the  commandment  of  the  King, 
in  the  presence  of  the  treasurer  and  the  comptroller  of  the 
treasury.  But  King  Henry  discharged  these  commissaries 
and  officers  of  the  treasury  in  order  not  to  be  obliged  in  the 
future  to  render  accounts  to  them."  In  consequence  of 
the  expenses  of  war  and  his  wasteful  habits,  Henry  had  been 
obliged,  quite  early  in  his  reign,  to  raise  the  rate  of  interest 
and  he  paid  on  loans  from  twelve  to  sixteen  per  cent.^ 
There  was  nothing  for  it  now  but  to  increase  taxes  and  the 
people  were  already  staggering  under  the  burden  of  taxa- 
tion. 

Besides  this  constant  pressure  of  poverty,  there  was 
another  influence  which  worked  very  strongly  for  peace  in 
the  King's  mind,  and  that  was  the  Constable,  who  had 
always  been  for  reconciliation  with  the  Hapsburgs.  In 
spite  of  all  the  opposition  of  the  Guise,  he  succeeded  in 
persuading  the  King  to  offer  peace  and  the  Truce  of  Vau- 
celles  was  signed  in  February,  1556.  It  suspended  all  war- 
like operations  for  five  years.  The  French  were  to  keep  aU 
that  they  had  gained  during  the  war,  which  gave  them 
Boulogne,  Metz,  Toul,  Verdun  and  many  places  in  Luxem- 
burg, Flanders  and  Hainault,  in  addition  to  the  portions  of 
Corsica  which  they  had  occupied,  and  many  places  in  Tus- 
cany and  central  Italy  which  they  had  taken.  If  the  Truce 
could  have  been  made  permanent,  it  would  have  been  an 

'  Bodin,  VI.  Ch.  2,  p.  904. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  73 

ending  to  the  long  war  between  Hapsburg  and  Valois, 
decidedly  in  favor  of  France.  As  a  reward  to  the  Constable, 
who  had  not  only  counselled  but  arranged  this  peace,  Diana 
of  France,  illegitimate  daughter  of  the  King  and  an  Italian 
woman,  was  to  be  married  to  the  Constable's  eldest  son, 
Francis.  Catherine  never  showed  any  animosity  towards 
her  husband's  bastards.  She  and  the  Duchess  of  Mont- 
morency always  remained  on  the  best  of  terms  and  it  was 
Diana  de  Montmorency  who,  in  her  old  age,  finally  carried 
out  the  last  wishes  of  Catherine  by  bringing  her  body  back 
from  Blois  and  burying  it  in  the  tomb  at  St.  Denis  which 
Catherine  had  built  for  herself  and  her  husband. 

Well  might  Ronsard  sing  over  the  Truce  of  Vaucelles: 

"Thou  hast  destroyed  the  troubles 
Of  harmful  war. 
Flashing  on  us  the  splendour 
Of  thy  victorious  graces. 
Instead  of  the  harsh  iron, 
Threats  and  flames, 
Thou  bringest  to  us  sports, 
Dance  and  the  love  of  women; 
Labours  dear  and  pleasant. 
To  young  and  ardent  years. 
Oh  great  King  without  an  equal, 
Thou  givest  us  this  gift 
Because  of  Montmorency 
And  his  faithful  counsel."  * 

But  the  peace  the  poet  sang  with  such  joy  was 
threatened,  even  before  it  was  made,  by  a  secret  treaty 
negotiated  by  the  Constable's  great  rivals  of  the  House  of 
Lorraine,  and  it  was  very  fleeting. 

Some  time  in  1556  Catherine  wrote  to  the  Duke  of 
Ferrara: 

"My  Uncle: 

"I  will  not  tell  you  of  the  pleasure  which  I  have  received  from 
having  heard  through  your  ambassador  that  things  are  as  I  have 

*  Ronsard  II,  35. 


74  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

wanted  them  for  so  long  a  time  to  be  and  to  see  the  good  reso- 
lutions which  the  King  has  taken  to  send  [to  Italy]  Mons.  de 
Guise  so  well  accompanied  as  he  is,  which  makes  me  hope  that, 
with  the  help  of  God  and  with  your  help,  I  shall  see  the  King 
in  the  position  where  I  have  so  long  hoped  to  see  him  and  that 
your  greatness  will  be  increased  with  his.  .  .  . 

"Your  good  niece,  Caterine."^ 

This  letter  marks  a  change  of  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
French  crown  which  was  the  result  of  a  long  struggle  be- 
tween the  two  factions  of  the  French  court.  In  this 
struggle  Catherine  evidently  abandoned  her  habitual  color- 
less attitude  of  humble  submission  to  whatever  her  husband 
decided  to  do,  and  took  a  strong  stand  in  urging  him  to 
action.  She  emerged  very  decidedly  from  her  carefully 
maintained  neutrality  and  friendliness  with  both  sides  in 
the  jealousies  of  the  Montmorency-Guise  factions  and  threw 
all  her  influence  against  her  old  friend  the  Constable  and 
in  favor  of  her  more  recent  friends,  the  Guise,  and  their 
great  ally,  her  husband's  mistress. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  guess  why  she  did  this.  The  ques- 
tion concerned  Italy  and  Italy  was  from  the  beginning 
the  one  sphere  where  she  had  continuously  tried  to  use 
political  influence.  The  stream  of  correspondence  regard- 
ing patronage  which  we  have  seen  beginning  when  she  was 
a  bride,  had  never  ceased  to  flow.  As  she  says  in  her 
letter  to  the  Duke  of  Ferrara,  she  had  always  wanted  her 
husband  to  be  master  in  Italy.  This  ambition  of  the  new 
King  and  Queen,  looking  toward  Italy,  had  been  clearly 
recognized  by  the  Spanish  Ambassador  at  the  beginning  of 
Henry's  reign.  He  wrote:  "It  is  reported  that  the  new 
Queen  Catherine  begged  the  Tuscan  Ambassador  to  urge  his 
master  to  come  to  terms  with  the  King.  The  Queen  pointed 
out  that  when  the  Emperor  died  there  would  be  less  stabiUty 
in  Italy  so  that  the  Duke  would  need  the  help  of  the  King 
of  France  whom  he  would  find  a  good  and  faithful  ally." 
The  Ambassador  replied  his  master  would  reject  these  pro- 

*Arch.  Mod.,  Endorsed  1556, 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  75 

posals  because  his  entire  devotion  was  toward  the  Emperor. 
"It  has  been  thought  good  to  give  this  information  to  show 
the  ardent  desire  of  the  French  King  and  his  friends  to  get 
the  lordship  of  Italy  and  to  stir  up  trouble  there  if  they  get 
the  chance."  ^ 

It  was  this  ambition  which  led  Catherine's  husband  to 
stake  his  newly  won  advantage  on  a  risky  venture.  The 
Truce  of  Vaucelles  had  marked  a  triumph  of  the  House  of 
Valois  over  Charles  V,  the  apparently  overmastering  adver- 
sary who  was  Emperor  of  Germany  and  King  of  Spain.  To 
break  this  truce  rather  than  to  turn  it  into  a  permanent 
peace  was  not  wise.  For  Henry  II  to  shift  the  bulk  of  his 
forces  from  the  north  where  he  had  been  so  successful,  and 
where  he  fought  close  to  his  base,  while  the  Spanish  King 
had  to  fight  far  from  his,  and  to  send  an  army  to  the  south 
of  Italy  in  the  hope  of  making  a  conquest  hundreds  of  miles 
from  his  own  borders,  seems  now  like  the  act  of  folly  it  was. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  the  favorite  folly 
of  three  of  his  predecessors  upon  the  throne  to  waste  the 
resources  of  France  in  a  vain  attempt  to  make  good  their 
claim  upon  the  Duchy  of  Milan  and  the  Kingdom  of 
Naples,^  and  that  the  change  in  Henry's  miUtary  strategy 
was  urged  upon  him  with  vehemence  by  the  general  whose 
exploits  in  the  field  had  done  so  much  to  force  the  brilliantly 
successful  Truce  of  Vaucelles. 

For  if  the  Constable  was  the  hero  of  peace,  the  Duke 
of  Guise  was  the  hero  of  the  war.  In  the  last  campaign  the 
Constable  had  done  little  with  the  great  armies  he  led  and 
the  Duke's  successful  defense  of  Metz  had  been  the  turning 
point  in  the  struggle.  He  was  very  anxious  to  renew  the 
war  for  several  reasons.  First,  because  he  was  the  ablest 
of  the  French  generals;  second,  because  the  Constable  and 
his  faction  at  court  were  thoroughly  in  favor  of  peace;  third, 
because  he  had  connections  and  ambitions  in  Italy;  fourth, 

»Cal,  Span.  1547-1549,  p.  211. 

'See  Note. 


76  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

because  his  brother  had  just  made  a  league  there  which  must 
be  repudiated  if  the  Truce  of  Vaucelles  stood. 

The  compHcated  situation  in  Italy  which  brought  about 
this  league  needs  a  few  words  of  explanation  to  show  how 
the  life  of  Catherine  was  affected  by  it. 

Pope  Julius  III  died  in  the  spring  of  1555.  In  the  Con- 
clave the  Cardinal  of  Ferrara,  the  uncle  of  the  wife  of  the 
Duke  of  Guise,  became  one  of  the  leading  candidates  for 
the  vacant  papal  throne.  Henry  II  had  ordered  the  French 
cardinals  to  support  the  Cardinal  of  Ferrara  as  if  he  were 
his  own  brother,  and  he  authorized  them  to  offer  to  the 
other  cardinals  who  might  be  willing  to  support  them  in 
voting  for  Ferrara,  benefices  in  the  French  church  to  the 
value  of  twenty-five  thousand  ecus  annually.  The  King  of 
Spain  likewise  sent  the  leader  of  his  party  among  the  car- 
dinals 20,000  scudi  as  election  funds.  That  maintaining 
good  connections  by  the  distribution  of  patronage  among 
the  cardinals  was  a  regular  policy  of  the  French  court  is 
shown  by  the  following  instructions  from  Catherine  to  her 
agent  in  Rome,  the  Count  of  Toumon : 

"The  King  is  much  pleased  to  hear  of  the  good  will  of  Car- 
dinal Vitelli  ...  to  whom  he  can  promise  all  the  favour  to  be 
hoped  from  a  great  King  with  large  means  of  showing  his  grati- 
tude to  his  good  servitors  as  a  proof  of  which  the  King  sends  him 
the  procuration  of  the  bishopric  of  Carcasonne,  which  is  *a  fine 
piece.'  Give  to  the  Cardinal  of  Altaemps  the  King's  letter 
accompanied  by  the  most  agreeable  language  you  can  invent  to 
make  him  understand  that  he  has  offered  his  services  to  a  King 
recognized  by  everyone  as  the  least  ungrateful  to  his  servitors 
of  any  monarch  in  the  world  which  in  time  the  Cardinal  will 
plainly  see  at  the  first  opportunity  of  doing  something  for  him. 
So  far  as  the  Cardinal  Ursini  is  concerned  the  King  is  very  glad 
to  be  assured  of  his  good  will  to  do  him  service,  which  will  be 
always  recognized  but  just  at  the  present  time  there  is  *no  piece 
of  Marque'  available.  As  for  getting  the  Cardinal  of  Ferrara  to 
transfer  to  him  the  Archbishopric  of  Narbonne  (as  has  been 
suggested)  'it  is  too  large  a  piece.'  It  would  be  enough  if  the 
Cardinal  of  Ferrara  could  accommodate  him  with  one  of  hia 
abbeys  of  the  value  of  five  or  six  thousand  livres,  with  the 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  77 

assurance  that  the  King  will  pay  Ferrara  back  with  the  first 
vacant  bishopric  or  abbey  of  an  equal  or  greater  value."  'So  far 
as  three  other  named  cardinals  are  concerned,  the  envoy  is 
directed  to  say  that  the  King  cannot  accommodate  them  at  the 
moment  by  any  of  the  means  suggested,  but  to  assure  them  that 
the  King  will  not  forget  them  although  he  is  forced  by  necessity 
to  wait  until  the  means  of  expressing  his  good  will  present  them- 
selves.' ^ 

But  patronage  had  no  weight  in  the  electoral  conference 
of  1555.  The  situation  of  the  Church,  threatened  by  the 
growth  of  Protestantism,  was  so  grave  and  the  desire  to 
reform  ecclesiastical  abuses,  complained  of  not  only  by  the 
Protestants  but  by  the  most  loyal  Catholics,  had  grown  so 
strong,  that  the  motives  which  had  ruled  so  often  in  elec- 
tions were  driven  into  the  background  and  yielded  to  ideas 
more  honest  and  more  holy. 

What  ideals  had  been  prevalent  in  previous  electing  con- 
claves are  fairly  explained  in  the  report  of  the  Venetian 
Ambassador  to  the  Senate  in  the  year  1560: 

"In  regard  to  the  method  and  the  incidents  which  arise  in  the 
election  of  a  pope  I  have  written  so  much  a  few  months  before, 
that  I  think  it  almost  superfluous  to  speak  of  it  any  more. 
Nevertheless,  I  will  say  that  the,  under  these  circumstances,  not 
too  sacred  Holy  College  of  Cardinals  is  directed  and  governed 
in  all  things,  so  far  as  human  judgment  can  form  any  decision, 
by  the  will  of  princes  and  by  the  particular  personal  interests 
of  the  cardinals.  I  have  never  heard  it  said  'such  and  such  a 
cardinal  will  be  pope  because  he  is  a  man  of  doctrine,  of  religion 
and  of  good  character,'  but  very  often  'such  a  man  will  not  be 
pope  because  he  is  too  scrupulous  in  religion  and  an  enemy  of 
vices'  because  a  large  part  of  the  cardinals  want  to  have  a  good- 
fellow  for  pope.  Every  day  I  have  heard  it  said  'such  and  such 
a  cardinal  will  be,  or  will  not  be,  pope  because  he  is  nominated, 
recommended  or  excluded  by  France  or  by  Spain  and  because 
he  is  either  the  friend  or  the  enemy  of  such  and  such  a  cardinal 
or  of  the  chief  of  some  faction.'  ...  I  say  this  because,  besides 
the  fact  that  some  of  the  cardinals  are  the  subjects  of  the  said 
princes,  which  makes  them  obedient  to  them,  almost  all  the 

'Arch.  Mod.,  qtd.  Romier  (1),  II,  3;  Ribier  II,  605;  Arch.  Simancas, 
809  f.  51,  qtd.  Riess  B.  N.  Nouvs.  Acqs.  6001  f.  44. 


78  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

cardinals  are  under  obligation  to  one  of  these  two  kings,  either 
because  they  hold  abbeys  of  them  or  other  beneficences,  or 
because  they  are  in  receipt  of  large  pensions.  Therefore  they 
are  afraid  that,  if  they  do  not  obey  the  will  of  these  kings,  they 
will  be  deprived  of  what  they  have;  or  they  hope,  on  the  other 
hand,  agreeing  to  their  wishes,  to  receive  from  them  still  greater 
emoluments  than  those  which  they  possess."^ 

The  election  of  a  pope  (Marcellus  II)  without  any 
political  connections,  with  the  highest  reputation  for  holy 
living,  ability  and  sincere  religion,  was  an  agreeable  surprise 
to  honest  churchmen  who,  like  this  ambassador,  knew  what 
had  often  happened  in  many  previous  papal  elections. 
Queen  Catherine  and  the  Constable  had  additional  reasons 
for  rejoicing  over  it.  A  correspondent  of  the  Duke  of 
Parma  wrote  to  him  that  they  were  glad  because  of  "the 
hate  they  bear  to  the  defeated  Cardinal  of  Ferrara,"  ^  -^j^q 
was  the  uncle  of  the  Duchess  of  Guise. 

But  the  holy  Marcellus  II  lived  only  three  weeks  and 
after  a  short  and  stormy  conclave,  Cardinal  Caraffa  was 
elected  and  took  the  name  of  Paul  IV.  Henry  II  was  not 
too  much  displeased,  because  the  name  of  Cardinal  Caraffa 
had  been  on  the  list  of  the  three  men  for  whom  his  adherents 
might  vote  in  case  the  election  of  the  Cardinal  of  Ferrara 
was  impossible.  The  new  Pope  was  a  man  of  seventy-nine 
years,  with  a  great  reputation  for  learning.  He  had  always 
been  most  rigorous  in  the  use  of  the  Inquisition  against 
heretics.  His  private  life  was  stainless.  The  old  man  soon 
made  it  apparent  that  besides  his  desire  to  reform  the 
church  and  repress  heretics  he  had  two  very  strong  passions: 
first,  a  desire  to  secure  a  great  deal  of  wealth  and  power  for 
his  nephews,  and  second,  a  hatred  of  Spaniards,  resulting  in 
an  eager  desire  to  destroy  their  dominance  in  Italy.  This 
latter  passion  was  intense  and  the  old  Pope  could  scarcely 
find  words  to  express  it.  He  told  the  Venetian  Ambassador 
that  the  Imperialists  were  "rogues,  children  of  the  devil 

*Rel.  II,  4,  p.  43,  Comp.  ib.  3,  p.  371. 
'Arch.  Nap.,  qtd.  Romier  II,  3. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  79 

and  of  iniquity."  The  agent  in  carrying  out  his  political 
policy  was  his  younger  nephew,  Carlo  Caraffa,  whose  life  up 
to  this  time  had  been  spent  as  a  soldier  of  fortune;  a  pro- 
fession in  which  he  had  gained  neither  much  wealth  nor 
great  reputation.  The  man  was  a  typical  Italian  condot- 
tiere,  a  free  liver  of  moderate  abilities,  violent  passions, 
unlimited  egotism  and  great  greed,  but  many  both  of  the 
Spanish  and  French  cardinals,  anxious  to  curry  favor  with 
the  Pope's  nephew,  urged  Paul  IV  to  carry  out  his  intention 
of  appointing  Carlo  a  cardinal.^ 

In  October,  1555,  three  months  before  the  Truce  of 
Vaucelles,  this  aged  Pope,  whose  dominant  motives  were 
zeal  for  orthodoxy  and  reform,  nepotism  and  hate  of  the 
Spaniards,  had  signed  the  draft  of  a  proposed  league  be- 
tween the  King  of  France,  the  Duke  of  Ferrara  and  the 
Papacy.  The  allies  were  to  create  an  army  and  a  war  chest 
of  five  hundred  thousand  scudi.  The  army  was  to  be  made 
up  of  ten  thousand  French  troops  and  ten  thousand  Papal 
troops  and  commanded  by  the  Duke  of  Ferrara.  The  King 
was  to  contribute  seven  tenths  of  the  contents  of  the  war 
chest  and  the  Pope  the  rest.  The  objects  of  this  league  and 
armament  were  to  drive  the  Duke  of  Florence  from  his  city 
and  restore  the  Republican  exiles ;  to  add  Siena  to  the  Papal 
States  or  to  give  it  as  a  fief  of  the  Papacy  to  some  lord  whom 
the  inhabitants  would  choose;  to  conquer  the  Kingdom  of 
Naples  and  grant  it  as  a  fief  to  one  of  the  younger  sons  of 
the  King  of  France;  to  make  another  one  of  the  younger 
sons  of  the  King  of  France  Duke  of  Milan,  to  cut  out  of  the 
territory  of  the  Kingdom  of  Naples  two  independent  states 
to  be  given  to  nephews  of  the  Pope.  The  King  was  de- 
lighted with  this  suggestion  and,  in  spite  of  the  opposition 
of  the  Constable,  he  sent  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the 
Cardinal  of  Toumon  to  Rome  to  complete  the  league.  It 
was  modified  and  signed  by  them  in  the  name  of  the  King 
of  France  on  the  15th  of  December,  1555.    So  eager  was 

»Rel.  II,  3,  p.  379.    Cal.  Vcn.,  11  Dec.  1556. 


80  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

the  old  Pope  in  this  matter  that  he  copied  out  with  his  own 
hand  the  clean  draft  of  the  treaty  which  was  to  be  sent  to 
France.  So  that  while  the  Constable  was  arranging  for 
peace  in  the  north:  in  the  south  his  rival  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine  had  arranged  for  war  against  Spain  with  a  joint 
Papal  and  French  army  which  was  to  be  commanded  by 
the  Duke  of  Ferrara.^ 

But  when  the  triumphant  Cardinal  got  back  to  Paris, 
he  learned  that,  three  days  before  his  arrival,  his  great 
adversary  the  Constable  had  arranged  the  Truce  of  Vau- 
celles.  He  cried  out  in  anger,  as  the  Ambassador  of  the 
Duke  of  Ferrara  reported  to  his  master,  "the  game  is  lost." 
The  old  Pope,  when  he  heard  the  news,  also  broke  out  in 
wrath.  But  Cardinal  Carlo  Caraffa  did  not  give  up  the 
game  yet.  He  finally  started  for  France  as  Legate  with 
the  ostensible  mission  of  arranging  a  general  permanent 
peace  in  Europe,  but  really  to  arrange  for  the  invasion  of 
Italy  by  a  French  army  attacking  Spain.  The  secret  was, 
however,  already  known  to  his  enemies.  The  Spanish  agent 
in  Paris  wrote  on  the  8th  of  June,  1556,  that  the  King  was 
holding  continual  councils  on  the  question  whether  they 
shall  make  a  permanent  peace,  maintain  the  Truce,  or  re- 
new the  war.  He  adds:  "They  find  it  very  difficult  to 
decide  for  several  reasons :  first,  the  Constable  is  in  no  sort 
of  agreement  with  the  House  of  Guise,  .  .  .  the  Guise  try- 
ing to  break  the  Truce  which  the  Constable  had  arranged 
without  them  ...  in  order  not  to  leave  to  the  Constable 
so  much  authority  and  reputation;  second,  the  solicitation 
of  the  Cardinal  Caraffa,  who  is  coming  to  advise  against 
peace.  .  .  .  Item,  Italian  fugitives  who  beg  them  to  con- 
tinue the  war.  .  .  .  Item,  the  Protestant  princes  of  Ger- 
many are  persuading  the  King  that  if  he  continues  the  war 
they  will  back  him."  It  shows  how  little  the  influence  of 
Catherine  at  court  had  been  counted  by  shrewd  observers 
up  to  this  time  that  the  Spanish  agent  does  not  even  men- 

»Ancel  Riess  61,  Romier  (1),  II,  30.    Cal.  Vcn.  VI,  343. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  81 

tion  her  aa  one  of  those  who  were  urging  the  King  towards 
war.^ 

Cardinal  Caraffa  arrived  at  the  French  court  about  the 
middle  of  June,  bringing  from  the  Pope  the  usual  gifts;  for 
the  King  a  blessed  sword  and  a  golden  rose  for  Catherine, 
who  had  already  entered  into  correspondence  with  him  in 
her  usual  way  by  asking  favors  for  her  friends.  He  had 
not  only  granted  the  favors,  but  written  a  letter  thanking 
her  for  defending  him  against  the  calumnies  of  people  who 
would  rather  express  their  malignity  than  serve  the  King. 
The  Pope  regarded  her  with  especial  favor,  for  the  Vene- 
tian Ambassador  wrote  to  the  Senate  that  he  heard  him  say : 
"The  Queen  of  France  is  a  little  saint.  She  will  give  us 
another  little  boy  whom  we  will  make  a  cardinal  and  thus 
interest  the  King  of  France  even  more  in  the  Holy  See."  ^ 

Caraffa  could  not  add  enough  weight  to  the  advice  of 
the  Guise  to  make  it  prevail,  but  for  some  reason  not  clear, 
Charles  V,  fully  aware  of  this  strife  in  the  French  royal 
council,  decided  to  strike  first  at  his  implacable  enemy  in 
the  papal  chair.  In  September,  1556,  a  week  before  Caraffa 
got  back  to  Rome,  after  an  unsuccessful  mission,  the  Duke 
of  Alva  invaded  the  papal  states  at  the  head  of  a  Spanish 
army.^ 

Even  this  news  did  not  at  once  destroy  the  Constable's 
firm  control  of  French  policy.  Henry  II  sent  word  to  Rome 
that  "they  must  try  to  make  peace  as  nothing  more  will  be 
done"  (by  France).  The  Guise-Diana-Queen  combination 
were  not,  however,  discouraged.  They  renewed  the  struggle 
to  get  the  ear  of  the  King,  and  Catherine  for  the  first  time 
threw  whatever  influence  she  had  with  her  husband  defi- 
nitely and  strongly  in  favor  of  a  disputed  pohcy  of  state. 
By  the  middle  of  the  summer  war  was  decided  on  amid  the 
general  enthusiasm  of  the  courtiers;  for  the  French  nobles 

*Decrue  (2),  189;  Arch.  Mod.  qtd.  Romier  II,  43;  Duruy  108,  ctd. 
GranveUe  (1),  IV,  594. 

*  Duruy  155  N.  Bib.  Casantense,  pntd.  Duruy  App.  381,  Cal,  Vcn. 
12  Feb.  1557. 

*Ancel  corrects  Duruy. 


82  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

at  court  were  never  averse  to  fighting;  which  meant  to  them 
adventure,  largess  and  the  chance  of  promotion.  Only  the 
Constable  protested,  saying,  "We  shall  all  ride  across  the 
Alps,  but  come  back  on  foot."  * 

The  Venetian  Ambassador  was  much  better  informed 
than  the  Spaniard  about  Catherine's  activity  in  this  struggle 
over  state  policy  between  the  two  great  factions  at  the 
French  court.  He  wrote:  "Before  this  resolve  was  formed 
by  the  King  there  were  great  disputes  between  the  Con- 
stable and  the  Duke  of  Guise.  The  Constable  and  his 
friends,  backed  by  general  public  feeling,  have  done  their 
utmost  to  prevent  ratification  of  the  league  with  the  Pope. 
The  Duke  of  Guise  was  in  favor  of  the  league  and  strongly 
supported  by  the  Queen  and  her  dependents  because  of  the 
affairs  of  Tuscany  (Florence)  and  by  Mme.  de  Valentinois 
and  her  dependents  because  of  her  connection  with  the 
Guise."  This  opposition  of  her  old  friend  did  not  make 
Catherine  any  less  keen  for  war  because  just  at  this  crisis 
she  was  put  out  with  him  over  a  distinctly  personal  matter. 
The  Spanish  Ambassador  writes:  "Between  the  Queen  and 
the  Constable  there  is  ill  feeling  on  account  of  the  marriage 
of  Montmorency."  The  story  is  so  filled  with  the  color 
and  atmosphere  of  the  times  that  it  is  worth  telling  in  some 
detail.^ 

Mademoiselle  de  Piennes  was  one  of  the  Queen's  maids 
of  honor:  a  young  woman  of  noble  family  about  twenty 
years  old,  "as  beautiful,  honest  and  accomplished  as  any  in 
France."  Francis  de  Montmorency,  the  oldest  son  of  the 
Constable,  now  twenty-six  years  old,  had  known  her  since 
she  was  a  little  girl  and  had  been  in  love  with  her  for  years. 
Before  he  went  to  the  war,  when  she  was  sixteen,  they  were 
secretly  engaged  to  be  married,  and  on  his  return  from 
captivity  (he  had  surrendered  with  the  garrison  of  Terou- 
anne)  he  had  solemnly  renewed  that  engagement  in  the 

^Ribier  II,  657,  Ancel  I,  2,  pp.  464,  476,  496;  Cal.  Vcn.,  19  Sept.  1556, 
Pasquier  (2),  Bk.  IV,  1. 

^  Cal.  Yen.,  12  Jan.,  1  Feb.,  1556.    Arch.  Belg.  qtd,  Romier  II,  102. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  83 

Abbey  Church  of  Vauluisant.  His  father,  who  knew  noth- 
ing of  all  this,  had  planned  for  him  a  great  future.  He  was 
to  marry  Diana,  illegitimate  daughter  of  the  King,  widow 
of  the  Duke  of  Castro.  Her  father  was  to  give  her  as 
dowry  two  counties  and  100,000  livres,  give  her  husband 
the  collar  of  the  order  of  St.  Michel  and  make  him  governor 
of  Paris  and  the  Isle  de  France.  When  Francis  heard  of 
this  plan,  he  was  afraid  to  tell  his  father  about  his  sweet- 
heart and  finally  got  his  cousin  Coligny,  now  admiral  of 
France,  to  tell  the  King.  The  King  dropped  a  hint  to  the 
Constable,  with  whom  he  was  dining,  and  the  next  morning 
the  Constable  got  the  secret  out  of  Coligny.  He  fell  first 
into  rage  and  then  into  melancholy  so  deep  that  he  would 
not  leave  his  house  for  two  weeks.^ 

Catherine  took  up  warmly  the  cause  of  her  pretty  maid 
of  honor.  But  the  Queen's  protection  did  not  do  the  poor 
girl  much  good.  She  was  called  before  a  tribunal  of  four 
bishops  and  two  lawyers,  who  shut  her  up  in  a  convent. 
Meantime  Francis  was  sent  to  Rome  to  get  released  from 
his  promise  by  the  Pope.  Thence  he  wrote  her  a  letter 
saying  that  he  was  sorry  to  have  ofi"ended  God,  the  King 
and  his  parents  and  had  asked  pardon  of  the  Pope,  who 
put  him  in  his  earlier  liberty,  therefore  he  gave  up  all  the 
promises  of  marriage  which  had  passed  between  them,  freed 
her  from  them  and  begged  her  to  do  the  same  to  him.  This 
letter  was  read  to  her  by  a  royal  commission  of  five.  With 
tears  in  her  eyes  she  said,  "I  see  very  well  that  M.  de  Mont- 
morency would  rather  be  a  rich  than  an  honest  man.  .  .  . 
If  he  was  the  son  of  the  King  I  would  not  marry  him  after 
that  letter.  And  since  you  have  seen  me  in  tears,  I  beg 
you  to  tell  him  that  it  is  not  for  any  regret  I  have  for  him," 
and  so  retired  from  the  room.^  Catherine  was  always  in- 
terested in  the  fate  of  her  servitors  and  naturally  felt  resent- 
ment over  this  piteous  scene,  so  that  if  she  needed  any  spur 
to  be  active  in  helping  to  prepare  for  the  war,  she  had 

*  Brant.  Ill,  231;  Granvelle  (1)  IV,  749. 
^  Le  Laboureur  II,  388. 


84  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

helped  to  carry  against  the  Constable's  influence,  it  came 
to  her  from  this  affair. 

From  one  class  of  people  to  whom  she  had  granted  pro- 
tection and  shown  great  personal  kindness  ever  since  she 
came  to  France,  Catherine  now  received  a  grateful  return. 
During  the  previous  discussions  about  war  in  Italy,  the 
Florentine  exiles  in  France  had  offered  to  lend  the  King 
400,000  crowns  at  16%  and  200,000  more  without  interest 
for  two  years,  to  be  used  against  the  Duke  of  Tuscany.  The 
Queen  now  sent  her  maitre  d'hotel,  a  Florentine,  to  the 
exiles  at  Lyons  to  urge  them  to  offer  money  to  the  King. 
He  came  back  in  about  six  weeks  with  the  offer  to  pay  2,000 
foot  and  400  horse  against  Tuscany.^ 

The  Duke  of  Ferrara  had  been  appointed  Captain- 
General  of  the  League  with  an  enormous  salary,  but  he 
deputed  the  actual  command  to  his  son-in-law,  the  Duke 
of  Guise,  who  crossed  the  Alps  with  thirteen  thousand 
picked  troops,  partly  drawn  from  the  northern  provinces 
of  Picardy  and  Champagne,  thus  left  exposed  to  the  enemy.^ 
Though  at  one  stage  in  the  negotiations  it  had  been  stipu- 
lated that  the  war  should  be  begun  in  Tuscany,  the  aim  of 
the  Guise  had  always  been  Naples.  It  was  indeed  arranged 
in  the  treaty  that  the  conquered  crown  was  to  be  given  to 
one  of  the  younger  sons  o^  Henry  II,  but  Guise,  who  had 
some  ostensible  hereditaiy  claim  upon  that  crown,  expected 
at  least  the  regency.  He  was  glad,  therefore,  that  the 
defense  of  the  Pope  against  the  Spanish  General,  Alva,  drew 
him  to  the  south. 

The  costly  and  audacious  enterprise  whose  one  chance 
of  success  lay  in  the  faithful  sacrifices  of  untrustworthy 
allies,  ended  in  failure.  Guise  was  obliged  to  raise  the  siege 
of  the  little  town  of  Civitella.  Habile  captain  as  he  always 
was,  he  drew  off  his  troops  without  disaster  but  Alva  held 
him  stalemated  near  Rome,  with  nothing  to  do  but  nurse 
his  men  attacked  by  disease  and  watch  his  Italian  allies  go 

*  C<il.  Vcn.,  12  Jan.,  14  Oct..  16  Nov.,  1SS6. 
•Decrue  (2),  194. 


THE  FIRST  TASTE  OF  REAL  POWER  85 

over  to  the  enemy.  From  the  discredit  of  this  breakdown 
of  his  military  and  diplomatic  plans,  he  was  called  home 
May  28th,  1558,  by  a  polite  note  from  the  Constable  of 
France.  He  seems  to  have  purposely  rather  delayed  his 
journey  and,  when  he  arrived,  he  was  not  met  as  an  unsuc- 
cessful general  back  from  an  inglorious  and  mistaken  mili- 
tary adventure,  but  as  the  most  powerful  man  beside  the 
throne.  He  was  greeted  by  a  Latin  poet  as  "the  greatest 
leader  of  the  French,  the  only  man  who  can  raise  once  more 
the  fallen  fortunes  of  France  from  the  catastrophe  which 
has  cast  her  prostrate  never  to  rise  unless  he  helps  her."  ^ 

*  Mems.  Joumaux,  Guise,  358.    L'Hopital  III,  232. 


CHAPTER  VI 

DISASTER  AND   SORROW 

The  thing  which  gave  the  unsuccessful  general  the  role 
of  national  leader,  was  a  great  national  misfortune.  His 
old  rival,  the  Constable,  who  directed  the  resistance  to  the 
Imperialist  invasion,  made  a  tactical  blunder.  The  superior 
force  of  the  enemy  had  taken  advantage  of  it  to  destroy 
utterly  the  main  army  of  France  and  this  spectacular  dis- 
aster had  wiped  out  for  the  moment  all  remembrance  of 
the  fundamentally  bad  strategy  of  Guise. 

The  Spaniards  and  English  invading  France  from  the 
north  with  an  army  of  about  fifty  thousand  men,  had 
invested  Saint  Quentin,  heroically  defended  by  the  Con- 
stable's nephew,  Admiral  Coligny.  The  Constable,  who  had 
with  difficulty  gathered  twenty  thousand  men,  advanced 
somewhat  incautiously  to  reinforce  the  besieged  and  then 
retreat.  In  this  movement  he  was  caught  in  a  bad  position 
and  his  army  was  all  but  annihilated,  the  tenth  of  August, 
1557,  in  the  battle  of  Saint  Quentin.  He  and  most  of  the 
French  captains  north  of  the  Alps  were  taken  prisoners  by 
the  Spaniards.  The  policy  of  renewing  the  war  which  he 
had  so  strenuously  opposed  and  the  diversion  of  a  consid- 
erable number  of  the  French  troops  south  of  the  Alps,  were 
really  responsible  for  this  national  disaster,  but  the  Con- 
stable, whose  tactical  blunder  was  nearest  to  it,  bore  in 
the  eyes  of  the  nation  all  the  blame.  That  there  were, 
however,  some  who  saw  the  whole  truth  the  following 
distich  proves:  "Henryco  parcit  populus,  maledicet  Mont- 
morency, Dianam  odit  sed  magis  Guisardos"  (The  people 
spare  Henry,  curse  Montmorency,  hate  Diana,  but  more 
the  Guise).  Many  captains  of  the  day  and  many  historians 
since,  have  blamed  the  Spaniards  for  not  pushing  on  at  once 

86 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  87 

to  Paris.  But  Paris  has  never  been  too  easy  to  take  and 
the  difficulties  of  provisioning  a  rapidly  invading  army 
would  have  been  very  great.  A  contemporary  biographer 
of  Philip  II  puts  much  wisdom  in  small  space  when  he 
writes,  'ThiUp  feared  lest,  like  his  father,  he  might  march 
into  France  eating  peacocks  and  march  out  eating  turnips."  ^ 
The  alarm  in  Paris  was  great,  but  the  King,  after  a 
moment  of  despair  and  rage,  showed  great  courage.  He 
ordered  the  bulk  of  the  army  in  Piedmont  to  come  back 
over  the  Alps  by  forced  marches.  He  diverted  toward  Paris 
the  6,000  Swiss  which  had  been  raised  to  reinforce  Guise 
in  Italy.  He  ordered  all  soldiers,  gentlemen  or  others  who 
had  ever  borne  arms,  to  rally  at  Laon  under  command  of 
the  Duke  of  Nevers.  He  wrote  to  all  his  allies  asking  help 
and  in  two  days  more  than  two  hundred  couriers  were  sent 
riding  in  all  directions.  At  the  time  of  the  disaster  the 
King  was  established  at  Compiegne,  about  thirty  miles 
behind  the  permanent  entrenched  camp  of  the  French  army, 
and  he  had  with  him  the  Queen  and  the  royal  council. 
Just  before  the  battle,  he  had  sent  the  Queen  and  the  coun- 
cil back  to  Paris  to  attend  to  some  matters  there.  On  the 
12th  of  August  the  Cardinal  of  Sens,  keeper  of  the  Great 
Seal  of  France,  appeared  before  the  Parlement  of  Paris. 
He  said  he  was  come  by  order  of  the  King  and  Queen  to 
inform  them  that,  although  the  state  was  in  danger,  it  was 
not  so  great  that  it  was  not  possible  to  find  a  remedy  for  it. 
It  was  the  first  misfortune  that  had  befallen  the  King  since 
he  came  to  the  throne  ten  years  before.  The  King  had 
decided  to  be  here  tomorrow  and  meantime,  following  his 
orders,  the  Queen  had  proposed  to  come  this  morning  into 
this  court  of  Parlement,  but  she  was  worn  out  and  ill.  She 
had  therefore  commanded  him  to  give  notice  to  the  court 
of  Parlement  to  appoint  a  deputation  to  meet  her  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  to  take  counsel  concerning  the  state  of  the 
kingdom.2 

"Societe  I  Int.  47,  Cordoba  I,  187. 

=  Societe  Doc,  pntd.  II,  257.    Rev.  des.  Qts.  Hist.,  32,  p.  478.    B.  N. 
Dupuy,  pntd.  Societe  II,  264. 


88  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

The  next  afternoon  the  Queen  appeared  before  Parle- 
ment.    It  was  the  first  great  public  occasion  of  her  life  and 
she  rose  to  it  with  extraordinary  success.    The  Venetian 
Ambassador  wrote  to  the  Doge  and  Senate  on  the  14th  of 
August,  1557:    "Yesterday  the  Most  Christian  Queen,  to 
settle  the  business  with  the  citizens  commenced  by  her 
during  the  King's  absence  to  obtain  the  subsidy  she  had 
caused  to  be  demanded,  went  in  person  to  the  Parlement 
house,  accompanied  by  certain  cardinals  and  a  number  of 
princes,  and  in  a  very  grave  form  of  speech  represented  the 
present  need,  adding  that,  although  the  most  Christian 
King  had  incurred  such  vast  expenditure  during  the  past 
wars,  yet,  nevertheless,  he  had  always  had  more  regard  for 
the  cities  than  for  any  other  estate  of  this  realm,  to  which 
fact  he  required  no  other  testimony  but  that  of  their  own 
consciences,  reminding  them  of  how  little  they  had  con- 
tributed hitherto;  but  as  the  need  continued,  his  Majesty 
did  not  consider  it  fitting  any  longer  to  burden  the  people, 
who  for  the  ordinary  expenditure  were  very  heavily  taxed 
and  yet  more  exorbitantly   through   the  extra  imposts. 
Wherefore  it  was  necessary  for  the  cities,  remembering  so 
many  benefits  and  favors  received  from  His  Majesty,  to 
demonstrate  to  the  whole  world,  in  this  the  kingdom's 
extreme  need,  their  fidelity  and  affection  for  their  Prince. 
Her  Majesty  spoke  with  such  earnestness  and  eloquence 
that  every  one  was  moved;  and  she  said  in  conclusion  that 
the  Most  Christian  King  required  a  vote  of  300,000  francs, 
adding  that  she  would  then  retire,  to  leave  them  free,  as 
usual,  to  deliberate,  which  she  did  by  withdrawing  into  a 
room.     It  was  immediately  voted  to  comply  with  her 
Majesty's  demand,  .  .  .  and  they  then  respectfully  prayed 
Her  Majesty  to  use  her  good  offices  with  the  King  in  favor 
of  their  privileges.    The  Queen  thanked  them  in  so  sweet 
a  form  of  speech  that  she  made  well  nigh  the  whole  Parle- 
ment shed  tears  from  emotion.    She  told  them  that,  remem- 
bering this  their  demonstration  towards  her,  she  would 
always  consider  them  her  clients,  and  she  promised  to 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  89 

appoint  her  son,  the  Dauphm,  their  advocate  and  inter- 
cessor with  the  Most  Christian  King.  Thereupon  the  Parle- 
ment  adjourned,  greatly  applauding  Her  Majesty,  and  with 
such  marks  of  extreme  satisfaction  as  to  defy  exaggeration; 
and  all  over  Paris  nothing  is  talked  of  but  the  prudent  and 
gracious  manner  adopted  by  Her  Majesty  in  this  business, 
everybody  declaring  that,  had  it  been  managed  by  any  other 
person,  there  would  neither  have  been  so  much  liberality 
nor  so  much  readiness  to  give.  The  determination  of  this 
city  to  give  His  Majesty  300,000  francs  will  yield  about  a 
million  and  a  half  of  gold;  it  being  customary  that  when 
Paris  forms  a  resolve  of  this  sort,  she  does  so  for  herself 
and  for  all  the  other  towns  of  the  kingdom,  each  of  them 
thus  knowing  her  proportional  quota.  In  a  month  the  King 
will  have  about  60,000  men."  ^ 

Some  days  later  the  Venetian  Ambassador  wrote  again 
describing  an  interview  with  the  Queen:  "I  told  her  Maj- 
esty that  I  had  heard  with  great  satisfaction  that  the  whole 
of  this  city  commended  her  address  and  mode  of  proceedmg 
in  the  Parlement,  thus  obtaining  vast  supplies  for  the  King 
and  infinite  praise  for  herself.  She  spoke  of  the  blunder  the 
Constable  had  made  through  too  great  self-confidence. 
'Oh!'  she  cried,  'that  the  Constable  who  has  not  his  equal 
in  Christendom  should  have  fallen  into  such  an  affair! 
And  I  give  you  my  word,'  she  went  on,  'he  went  away 
determined  not  to  fight.  When  he  took  leave  of  me  I  said, 
"Gossip,  for  the  love  of  God  beware,  and  consider  the  con- 
sequences of  any  misfortune."  He  answered,  "Madame, 
I  know  what  is  needed — do  not  be  anxious — I  know  how 
to  take  care  of  myself."  '  "  ^ 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  the  Duke  of  Guise  was  estab- 
lished between  Paris  and  the  enemy  with  an  army  of 
thirty-five  thousand  men.  As  a  general  Guise  was  as  lucky 
as  he  was  skilful  in  handling  troops.  It  was  his  good  for- 
tune that  the  whole  blame  for  the  mistaken  policy  of 

*  Cal.  Vcn^  14  Aug.  1557.    B.  N.  fds.  fr.  15494  Montaignes  Histoire,  etc. 
*Cal.  Vcn.,  21  Aug,  1557,  p.  149. 


90  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

renewing  the  war  had  fallen  upon  his  great  rival,  the  Con- 
stable. It  was  now  to  be  his  further  good  fortune  to  get 
the  entire  credit  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  for  a  victory  which 
was  due  to  the  strategy  of  another  man. 

From  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  the  King  had  been 
almost  possessed  with  the  idea  of  recovering  Calais  from  the 
Enghsh.  The  pride  of  the  English  in  holding  that  French 
seaport  was  out  of  aU  proportion  to  its  value  to  them. 
They  had  cut  into  the  arch  of  the  gate  an  inscription  saying 
"the  Frenchmen  will  take  Calais  when  iron  and  lead  float 
like  cork."  The  King  forced  the  Duke  of  Guise,  against 
his  continued  remonstrance,  to  attack  Calais  suddenly  in 
the  depth  of  winter.  On  January  9th  "at  the  wedding  ball 
of  the  daughter  of  the  Duchess  of  Bouillon  with  the  son 
of  the  Duke  of  Nevers,  while  the  King  was  dancing  in  the 
dusk  of  the  evening,  a  messenger  came  from  the  Duke  of 
Guise  to  say  that  a  flag  of  truce  had  just  been  raised  on  the 
walls  of  Calais  with  the  offer  to  surrender.  Not  only  the 
King  and  the  court  and  the  Queen,  but  this  entire  popula- 
tion make  such  a  great  rejoicing  that  greater  could  not  be 
made  for  any  other  event."  The  Duke  was  covered  with 
rewards  and  honors.  All  the  poets  sang  his  praises  and 
although  the  truth  was  known  to  those  at  court,  yet  the 
brilliant  figure  of  the  conqueror  replaced  in  the  popular 
imagination  the  sombre  personality  of  the  King,  to  whose 
wise  counsel  this  triumph,  which  seemed  to  wipe  out  the 
previous  defeat,  was  really  due.^ 

But  no  brilliant  stroke  like  the  taking  of  Calais,  how- 
ever much  it  might  humiliate  the  hereditary  enemy  of 
France,  could  change  the  fact  that  those  who  had  opposed 
the  renewal  of  war  with  Spain  had  been  right.  Even  if 
Saint  Quentin  had  been  a  victory,  France  would  not  have 
been  able  to  maintain  the  struggle  long.  Her  complete 
financial  exhaustion,  as  well  as  internal  disorders  which  will 
be  explained  later,  rendered  peace  imperatively  necessary. 

*Cal.  Vcn.,  9  Jan.  1558.  van  Dyke  Am.  Hist.  Soc,  1911.  The  Taking 
of  Calais. 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  91 

Spain  was  little  less  exhausted  and  Philip  II,  who  had  not 
wished  the  renewal  of  the  war,  was  really  more  ready  to 
make  peace  than  he  allowed  it  to  appear  in  the  negotiations. 
The  great  advocate  of  the  policy  of  peace,  the  Constable, 
was  indeed  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  Spain.  But  his  tradi- 
tional friendship  for  the  House  of  Hapsburg  and  his  well 
known  and  long  standing  desire  for  the  policy  of  concilia- 
tion, made  him  a  very  influential  prisoner  and,  with  the 
French  King  also,  his  influence  seemed  to  be  increased 
rather  than  diminished  by  his  absence.  In  all  his  letters 
Henry  II  expressed  the  most  unbounded  affection  for  him, 
and  no  sagacious  man  could  fail  to  see  by  the  outcome  that, 
in  spite  of  the  defeat  of  Saint  Quentin  and  the  victory  of 
Calais,  the  honors  of  statecraft  really  rested  with  him  and 
not  with  his  brilliant  rival,  the  Duke  of  Guise.  The  Queen 
did  not  yet  see  this,  but  she  wrote  her  "gossip"  very  friendly 
letters  like  the  following: 

"My  Gossip: 

"I  was  very  glad  to  hear  news  of  you  by  Mem,  particularly 
that  your  wound  is  doing  well  and  I  pray  God  that  very  soon  you 
will  be  in  as  good  health  as  I  desire.  .  .  .  The  King  and  all  his 
children  are  very  well  and  after  Easter  he  will  leave  here  to 
attend  the  marriage  of  his  son  and  the  Queen  of  Scotland  at 
Paris ;  where  I  wish  that  it  would  please  God  that  you  could  be. 
I  assure  you  that  you  are  much  longed  for  out  of  a  good  heart 
for  the  pleasure  which  I  assure  myself  that  you  would  have  to 
see  the  King  and  all  this  company  in  such  good  condition,  because 
no  one  talks  of  anything  except  making  good  cheer  and  joy  and 
pleasure.  God  by  His  grace  be  willing  to  continue  us  in  this 
condition  and  also  be  willing  to  remove  you  very  soon  from  the 
place  where  you  are  and,  in  waiting  upon  His  pleasure,  I  beg 
you  not  to  bore  yourself  too  much  and  to  take  pains  to  take  care 
of  yourself  and  to  recover  your  perfect  health,  in  order  to  be  able 
to  see  once  more  your  master  and  all  the  rest  of  us  with  as  much 
joy  as  I  pray  God  to  give  you  in  it:  which  will  be  the  place  where 
I  shall  recommend  myself  to  your  good  grace. 

"From  Fontainbleau,  27th  of  March — ^your  good  gossip  and 
friend, 

"Cateeinb."  * 

*Lett3. 1, 117. 


92  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

The  marriage  to  which  Catherine  alluded  took  place  in 
April,  1558,  and  we  know  that  it  was  not  particularly  pleas- 
ing to  the  Constable,^  although  Catherine  politely  expressed 
her  sorrow  that  he  was  not  to  be  present  at  the  wedding. 
The  closer  connection  between  the  reigning  lines  of  the 
House  of  Lorraine  and  the  royal  House  of  France  had  been 
discussed  even  before  the  taking  of  Calais,^  and  that  bril- 
liant feat  of  arms  sealed  the  negotiations.  This  closer  alli- 
ance was  to  be  a  double  one:  Claude,  the  daughter  of  Henry 
and  Catherine,  was  to  marry  the  Duke  of  Lorraine,  and 
Francis,  the  Dauphin,  was  to  marry  the  little  Queen  of 
Scots,  daughter  of  Mary,  the  sister  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine and  the  Duke  of  Guise.  This  marriage  of  state  was 
also  a  marriage  of  affection  for  they  had  been  brought  up 
together  and  were  deeply  attached  to  each  other.  The 
ceremony  was  a  splendid  one.  The  Venetian  Ambassador 
thus  describes  it: 

"Yesterday  the  wedding  ceremonies  of  the  Dauphin  and  the 
Queen  of  Scotland  ended,  the  bride  having  completed  her  fifteenth 
year  in  the  beginning  of  last  December,  the  bridegroom  being 
fourteen  years  old  on  the  eighteenth  of  January  last.  These 
nuptials  were  really  considered  the  most  regal  and  triumphant 
of  any  that  have  been  witnessed  in  this  kingdom  for  many  years, 
whether  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  company — all  the  chief 
personages  of  the  realm,  both  temporal  and  spiritual,  being 
assembled,  including  the  Cardinal  Legate  and  all  the  other 
Ambassadors — or  from  the  pomp  and  riches  of  the  jewels  and 
apparel  of  the  lords  and  ladies,  or  from  the  grandeur  of  the 
banquet  and  the  stately  service  of  the  tables,  or  from  the 
costliness  of  the  masquerade  and  other  revels.  These  ceremonies 
have  especially  gratified  and  contented  the  Parisian  people 
(amongst  whom  money  was  thrown  on  entering  the  church  as  a 
mark  of  greater  joy)  because  for  two  hundred  years  and  upward 
there  is  no  record  of  any  Dauphin  having  been  married  within 
the  realm.  All,  on  the  contrary,  had  been  married  abroad  and 
brought  their  wives  after  the  ceremony  either  from  Spain,  Eng- 
land, Flanders  or  Germany.  Henceforth  the  Dauphin  will  no 
longer  be  styled  simply  the  Dauphin,  but  the  King  Dauphin,  and 

*  Cal.  Vcn.  App.  1558. 
»Cal.  Vcn.  1095,  1098,  1115. 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  93 

the  Queen  in  like  manner  will  be  called  the  Queen  Dauphiness: 
the  two  crowns  of  France  and  of  Scotland  being  united  in  their 
arms.  The  King  of  Navarre  gave  me  a  hint  in  private  con- 
versation that  the  Constable  had  been  among  the  many  opponents 
of  this  marriage." 

How  much  honor  and  power  this  alliance  with  the  royal 
house  brought  to  the  cadet  branch  of  the  House  of  Lor- 
raine is  suggested  by  the  fact  that  the  Senate  of  Venice 
wrote  letters  of  congratulation  to  the  groom  and  to  the 
bride,  to  the  father  and  mother  of  the  groom,  the  King  and 
Queen  of  France,  and  to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the 
Duke  of  Guise,  the  uncles  of  the  orphan  bride.  This  great 
increase  of  the  power  of  the  Lorraines  did  not  make  things 
any  easier  at  court.  The  Venetian  Ambassador  reported, 
'They  already  write  from  court  about  a  division  between 
these  two  ministers  and  their  families  and  that  the  factions 
have  declared  themselves  openly."  ^ 

The  natural  jealousy  and  the  rivalry  of  the  two  houses 
was  brought  to  a  climax  by  the  renewal  of  that  great  dis- 
pute in  regard  to  the  policy  of  the  crown  on  which  they 
had  always  taken  opposite  sides.  The  Constable  and  his 
friends  wanted  peace.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  the  Duke 
of  Guise  and  their  friends  wanted  war,  or  at  least  they 
wanted  to  insist  upon  better  terms  of  peace  than  Spain 
was  willing  to  grant.  The  pitch  of  intensity  to  which  this 
jealousy  and  hatred  finally  rose  is  shown  in  a  scene  which 
took  place  in  the  midst  of  the  negotiation  with  Spain,  during 
one  of  the  times  when  the  Constable  was  released  on  parole. 
It  was  described  to  the  Venetian  Ambassador  by  the  Prince 
of  Ferrara,  who  took  part  in  it.  "The  Duke  of  Guise  told 
the  Prince  of  Ferrara  and  the  Duke  of  Nemours  to  be  at 
a  certain  place  outside  of  the  palace  at  St.  Germain.  Guise 
then  went  and  found  Francis  Montmorency,  the  Constable's 
oldest  son,  in  the  Queen's  room.  Drawing  him  by  the  hand 
he  said  with  a  smile  that  he  wanted  to  talk  with  him.  They 
went  out  joking,  but  when  Guise  got  him  to  the  place  where 

»Cal.  Vcn.,  25  App.  1558,  ib.  pp.  1229-1234. 


94  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

he  had  asked  his  friends  to  wait  he  turned  and  said :  'I  have 
brought  you  here  because  I  have  heard  you  have  maligned 
me  and  said  things  to  my  dishonor  which  I  resent.  Draw 
your  sword  and  fight.'  Francis  denied  having  said  anything 
to  his  dishonor.  But  on  returning  to  the  palace  he  went 
to  the  King  and  told  him  and  his  father.  The  King  was 
much  displeased  but  the  Constable  affected  to  make  nothing 
of  the  affair."  The  Guises  seemed  to  have  the  advantage, 
for  they  were  always  at  the  ear  of  the  King.  Guise  was  a 
victorious  general,  the  Constable  a  defeated  prisoner,  and 
Diana,  always  a  jealous  rival  of  the  Constable  for  Henry's 
affection,  had  become  an  active  enemy  at  the  time  of  the 
Lady  Fleming  affair.  For  a  long  while  they  would  not  speak 
to  each  other.  Finally  at  the  instance  of  the  King  they 
made  peace  on  the  surface,  but  "in  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts  their  hate  is  as  great  as  ever."  ^ 

But  now  the  veteran  courtier  made  a  great  stroke  in  the 
game,  which  is  recorded  in  a  letter  of  the  Venetian  Ambas- 
sador: "The  conditions  of  the  suggested  peace  are  openly 
blamed  by  many,  but  the  Constable  has  written  a  letter  to 
the  King  and  another  letter  to  the  Duchess  of  Valentinois. 
.  .  .  The  Duke  of  Guise  is  afraid  that  the  Constable  and 
the  Duchess,  who  is  now  so  united  to  the  Constable  that 
they  are  one  and  the  same,  will  persuade  the  King  to  peace 
— to  the  great  shame  of  the  King  and  the  universal  dis- 
content of  the  entire  kingdom."  The  results  of  this  stroke 
of  the  Constable  in  winning  the  alliance  of  Diana  are  de- 
scribed in  a  letter  of  Cardinal  Trivulzio  to  Cardinal  Caraffa 
dated  the  15th  of  November,  1558: 

"I  wrote  yesterday  to  Your  Illustrious  Excellency  informing 
you  that  there  was  no  hope  of  peace.  Today  I  hear  from  a  most 
excellent  source  that  His  Majesty,  returning  from  hunting,  had 
a  long  conversation  with  Mme.  de  Valentinois,  who  had  received 
letters,  as  the  King  had  also,  from  the  Constable,  written  with 
his  own  hand.  He  went  from  there  into  the  council  of  affairs, 
where  he  said  that  he  had  come  to  announce  his  decision  in  favor 

*Cal.  Vcn.,  15  Nov.  1558. 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  95 

of  peace.    When  one  of  the  councillors  wished  to  continue  an 
argument  against  his  decision,  he  bade  him  be  silent."  ^ 

It  was  at  this  time  the  Constable  received  the  following 
letter : 

"Monsieur: — 

"I  have  received  the  letters  which  you  have  written  to  me, 
for  which  I  thank  you  very  humbly  for  the  trouble  which  you 
have  taken  because  I  believe  your  work  is  so  great  that  you  have 
really  no  leisure  to  write  to  me  with  your  own  hand  and  it 
suffices  me  to  simply  receive  a  remembrance  from  you  but  never- 
theless the  secretary  who  is  finishing  the  half  of  my  letter  and 
I  myself  recommend  ourselves  to  your  good  grace  and  we  pray 
God  to  give  you  that  which  you  desire.    This  comes  from  your 

ancient  and  best  friends,  ,-tt  t^         ,,0 

'  "Henry— Diana."  ^ 

A  month  later  Strozzi  wrote  to  a  friend: 

"The  marriage  of  Montmorency  [the  Constable's  son]  with 
the  oldest  daughter  of  Mme,  Valentinois  [Diana]  will  take 
place  soon  after  the  return  of  the  Constable,  which  is  a  reason 
why  a  very  strong  confederation  has  been  formed  between  the 
two,  which  has  caused  much  astonishment  to  many  people  be- 
cause of  the  little  friendship  which  they  had  in  the  past.  This 
new  combination  made  every  effort  to  gain  the  Queen  and  to  draw 
her  from  her  party  and  it  is  feared  that  between  this  and  her 
fear  of  displeasing  the  King,  Her  Majesty  will  allow  herself  to 
be  gained,  although  she  swears  and  affirms  that  this  will  never 
happen."  ^ 

One  ambassador  has  told  us  how  this  quarrel  among  the 
men  of  these  two  rival  factions  came  to  drawn  swords.  Let 
'another  tell  us  how  the  quarrel  between  the  women  came  to 
.words  as  sharp  as  swords: 

"The  Duke  of  Guise  says  that  the  day  before  they  had  made 
His  Majesty  promise  with  an  oath  never  to  surrender  Piedmont, 
...  the  Queen  had  very  bravely  urged  His  Majesty,  as  far  as 
she  possibly  could,  not  to  confirm  his  mind  in  a  resolution  so  little 

'  Cal.  Vcn.,  15  Nov.,  Arch.  Mod.  qtd.  Romier  II,  312  N. 
'Guiffret,  161.    The  underscored  words  in  the  King's  hand;  the  others 
in  Diana's. 

'  Mss.  qtd.  Romier  II,  311  N.  3. 


96  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

honorable  as  to  surrender  it,  even  kneeling  at  his  feet  in  order 
to  turn  him  from  this  resolution,  calling  out  to  him  that  the 
Constable  had  never  done  anything  but  evil.  To  this  the  King 
responded  that  the  Constable  had  always  done  well  and  that  they 
had  done  evil  who  had  ever  counseled  him  to  break  the  truce 
and  so,  without  being  the  least  moved  from  his  opinion,  he  left 
her  with  these  words.  .  .  .  The  Queen,  being  in  her  cabinet  after 
this  scene,  reading,  in  order  to  pass  the  time,  the  history  of  this 
kingdom,  Madame  the  Seneschale  [Diana]  entered  and  demanded 
of  Her  Majesty  whether  she  was  reading  anything  that  was  good. 
The  Queen  answered  her,  *I  am  reading  the  history  of  this  king- 
dom and  I  find  that  always  from  time  to  time  courtesans  (to  use 
the  word  that  she  used)  have  been  influential  in  the  affairs  of 
kings,'  and  left  her  with  this  word."^ 

Whether  Catherine's  long  patience  broke  down  in  this 
instance  and  she  really  flung  this  harsh  speech  in  the  teeth 
of  her  husband's  mistress  or  not,  cannot  be  told  for  certain. 
This  may  be  an  exaggerated  report.  But  certain  it  is  that 
Catherine  suffered  the  tortures  of  jealousy  during  those 
thirteen  years  when  she  bore  her  husband  ten  children  and 
that,  at  least  once,  she  was  tempted  to  a  protest  much  more 
vigorous  than  any  words  she  could  have  used.  A  strange 
chance  has  preserved  for  us  a  record  of  an  unaccomplished 
crime,  a  planned  revenge  of  the  Queen  against  her  rival 
which  shows  a  state  of  Catherine's  mind  which  renders  this 
reported  scene  at  least  probable  and  makes  plain  that  the 
posthumous  complacence  with  which  she  wrote  of  the  situa- 
tion to  Henry  IV  in  the  letter  already  quoted,  is  the  record 
of  a  seeming  indifference  which  masked  a  heart  torn  by  the 
fiercest  passion. 

In  May,  1561  (about  two  years  after  her  husband's 
death)  the  Duke  of  Nemours  wrote  to  Catherine:  "I  have 
always  been  ready  to  employ  myself  to  do  you  humble 
service  without  considering,  provided  you  were  satisfied  with 
it,  the  good  or  evil  which  might  come  to  me  from  it.  If  you 
please  you  can  remember  that  this  is  so."  * 

*Arch.  Mod.,  qtd.  Romier  II,  314  N.  1. 

'  B.  N.  Fds.  fr.  3159  f.  49.  Letter  answered  by  Catherine  21  May,  1561. 
Letts.  I,  197. 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  97 

The  meaning  of  this  allusion  would  have  been  lost  but 
for  a  curious  incident.  The  following  October  the  Duke  of 
Nemours  fled  hastily  from  court  under  suspicion  of  being 
engaged  in  a  plot  to  abduct  one  of  the  princes.  He  wrote 
in  his  own  excuse,  a  letter,  which  repeats  this  allusion  to 
some  dangerous  service  he  had  been  willing  to  do  for 
Catherine:  "I  recollect  that  you  were  pleased  to  trust  me 
and  use  me  in  many  things ;  which  I  thought  a  great  honor 
because  they  were  things  of  great  consequence  to  you.  I 
remember  also  the  pleasure  I  took  to  do  you  favors  in  them 
and  the  devotion  and  service  with  which  I  gave  myself  to 
do  a  thing  which  was  agreeable,  without  reminding  you  of 
the  danger  and  enmity  which  might  follow  for  me  from 
such  an  action  if  it  should  become  known,  chiefly  from  him 
or  those  whom  it  concerned."  This  letter  was  copied  in  a 
selection  made  in  the  18th  century  of  documents  concerning 
his  attempt  to  carry  off  the  little  prince.^  In  that  copy  the 
above  allusion  to  some  unknown  dangerous  service  which 
Nemours  had  once  offered  to  do  for  Catherine,  was  under- 
scored and  in  the  margin  there  had  been  written  by  the 
copyist:  "In  the  original  copy  sent  to  Mon.  de  Limoges 
(Ambassador  to  Spain)  there  is,  at  the  end  of  the  under- 
scored lines,  a  reference  to  a  footnote  at  the  bottom  of  the 
page  which  is  here  put  at  the  bottom  of  the  letter."  The 
copyist  preceded  his  record  of  the  lost  footnote  with  these 
words:  "Note  in  the  hand  of  Claude  de  L'Aubespine  (one 
of  Catherine's  secretaries  with  an  unmistakable  hand, 
brother  of  the  Ambasador  to  Spain) :  "The  Queen  laughed 
heartily  when  she  saw  in  the  letter  of  Mon.  de  Nemours 
the  lines  marked  and  recalled  that  she  wanted  to  use  him, 
when  she  was  so  angered  at  Madame  de  Valentinois,  to 
throw  a  strong  distilled  water  in  her  face,  as  if  in  sport, 
which  would  have  disfigured  her  for  life.  And  so  she  had 
thought  to  get  back  the  King  her  husband ;  but,  on  further 
reflection,  she  decided  not  to  do  it.  Please  burn  this  letter 
after  you  have  read  it."    The  original  copy  sent  to  Spain 

*B.  N.  Fds.  fr.  6608. 


98  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

is  also  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  ^  but  the  bottom  of 
the  sheet  containing  the  original  of  the  above  note  of  the 
secretary  has  been  cut  off  by  a  knife  or  a  pair  of  scissors. 
Curiously  enough  this  original  note  of  Catherine's  secre- 
tary, doubtless  cut  off  to  be  stolen,  was  repurchased  in 
1913  and  returned  to  the  BibUotheque  Nationale^  and  it 
enables  us  to  read  her  heart  at  this  time  better  than  almost 
all  those  who  lived  with  her  at  the  court  of  France.  Not 
only  this  criminal  impulse  which  never  passed  into  action, 
but  the  very  active  part  the  Queen  played  in  the  struggle 
to  win  the  King  for  peace  or  war,  escaped  the  notice  of  all 
the  sharp-eyed  and  curious  ambassadors  resident  at  the 
French  court  except  the  Ambassador  of  Ferrara,  whose 
relation  to  the  Duchess  of  Guise,  his  master's  daughter  and 
Catherine's  intimate  friend,  gave  him  sources  of  secret 
information. 

That  the  King  was  more  anxious  for  peace  than  he  was 
willing  to  confess  to  the  importunate  advocates  of  war  who 
backed  the  counsel  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the 
Duke  of  Guise,  is  evident  from  the  following  letters  written 
to  the  captive  Constable: 

"My  Fmend: 

"I  assure  you  that  Mens,  de  Guise  does  not  want  peace, 
pointing  out  to  me  every  day  that  I  have  more  means  for 
continuing  the  war  than  I  ever  had  and  that  I  shall  not  make 
so  great  a  loss  in  continuing  the  war  as  I  shall  have  if  you  come 
to  an  arrangement.  .  .  .  Do  what  you  can  to  give  us  peace  and 
do  not  show  this  letter  to  any  one  but  Marshal  St.  Andre  and 
after  that  burn  it." 

And  a  little  later  he  wrote: 

"I  would  gladly  suffer  death  which  I  would  consider  happy 
and  I  would  die  content,  if  I  could  see  a  good  peace." 

There  was«a  secret  pressure  for  peace  from  the  Spanish 
King  as  strong  as  that  brought  to  bear  on  the  Constable  by 
Henry  II.    He  wrote  to  his  peace  commissioner : 

*B.  N.  Fds.  fr.  6618  f.  52.  Scribner's  Magazine,  July,  1910:  "An  Un- 
finished Crime,"  with  facsimiles,  by  Paul  van  Dyke. 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  99 

"I  find  myself  under  an  absolute  impossibility  of  continuing 
the  war.  I  have  already  spent  twelve  hundred  thousand  ducats 
which  I  raised  from  Spain  two  or  three  months  ago,  and  I  have 
need  of  another  million  in  the  coming  month  of  March.  They 
have  sent  me  from  Spain  Doctor  de  Lasco  to  assure  me  that  they 
cannot  do  anything  more  for  me.  The  situation  seems  to  me  so 
very  grave  that,  under  pain  of  losing  everything,  I  must  come  to 
some  sort  of  an  arrangement.  I  am  waiting  with  a  very  active 
impatience  for  news,  but  on  no  account  whatever  must  these 
negotiations  be  broken  off."  ^ 

The  peace  which  was  made  under  these  conditions,  on 
the  French  side  chiefly  by  the  Constable  assisted  by  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  was  not  simply  a  dynastic  peace, 
between  the  houses  of  Hapsburg  and  Valois,  or  even  a 
national  peace  between  France  and  Spain.  As  the  contem- 
porary de  Thou  points  out,  it  "included  the  Pope,  the 
Emperor,  all  the  princes  and  states  of  the  Empire,  the 
Kings  of  Poland,  Sweden,  Denmark  and  Scotland,  the 
Queen  of  England,  the  Republic  of  Venice,  Switzerland  and 
the  Dukes  of  Lorraine,  Savoy,  Ferrara,  Mantua,  Urbino, 
Parma,  and  Piacenza  and  the  Republics  of  Genoa  and 
Lucca;  so  that  it  was  not  a  peace  between  the  French  and 
Spaniards  but  between  all  Christian  princes."  It  remained, 
on  the  whole,  the  base  of  the  public  law  of  Europe  for  about 
a  hundred  years  until  the  Peace  of  Westphalia.- 

The  Treaty  of  Cateau-Cambresis  was  no  such  ostensibly 
brilliant  victory  for  France  as  the  Truce  of  Vaucelles,  but 
it  retained  the  most  valuable  of  the  conquests  of  Henry  II, 
the  Bishopric  of  Metz,  Toul  and  Verdun,  Boulogne  and 
Calais;  the  last  under  the  guise  of  a  temporary  occupation 
which  everybody  suspected  would  be  permanent.  This  re- 
stricted France  to  her  natural  boundaries  by  giving  up  the 
conquests  which  had  been  made  in  Italy  at  the  expense  of 
the  Duke  of  Savoy,  who  was  restored  to  his  estates;  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  fortresses  which  were  to  be  held  for 

'Guiffret  155.  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3139,  qtd.  de  Ruble  (1).  Granvelle  (1)  V, 
453,  Comp.  397. 

'De  Thou,  II,  664. 


100  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

a  time  by  France.  The  reinstated  Duke  was  to  marry  the 
Princess  Marguerite,  sister  of  Henry  II.  France  therefore 
gained  the  advantage  of  having  on  its  borders  to  the  north- 
east and  the  southeast,  two  buffer  states,  Lorraine  and 
Savoy,  bound  to  it  by  marriage  alliances.  The  long  rivalry 
between  Hapsburg  and  Valois  was  also  to  be  ended  by  a 
marriage.  PhiUp  II,  on  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  Mary 
Tudor,  had  vainly  tried  to  persuade  her  successor,  Eliza- 
beth, to  marry  him.  He  now  proposed  that  .the  oldest 
daughter  of  Henry  II,  Elizabeth,  who  had  been  engaged  to 
his  oldest  son,  Carlos,  should  become  the  Queen  of  Spain, 
and  Catherine,  who  had  seen  her  eldest  son  married  at 
fifteen,  was  now  to  see  her  eldest  daughter  married  at 
fourteen. 

The  Venetian  Ambassador  wrote  home :  "Both  at  Paris 
and  in  all  other  towns  of  the  kingdom,  this  peace,  published 
by  the  sound  of  trumpet  and  proclaimed  by  the  royal 
heralds,  was  received  with  demonstrations  of  universal  joy 
as  shown  by  bonfires  and  public  tables  prepared  in  the 
streets."  But  the  states  of  Germany  and  Italy  which  had 
been  allied  to  France,  and  to  which  any  peace  meant  an 
increased  pressure  from  the  Hapsburgs  and  their  friends, 
looked  upon  this  settlement  of  the  long  war  between  the 
two  houses  with  an  evil  eye.  In  addition  the  whole  warrior 
class,  and  that  meant  practically  the  entire  nobiUty,  re- 
garded it  as  a  disgrace  to  France.  The  Duke  of  Guise,  in 
whose  hearing  the  King  was  explaining  the  reasons  for 
peace,  broke  out  in  great  excitement:  "I  swear  to  you, 
sire,  that  this  is  an  evil  road,  for,  even  if  you  should  do 
nothing  but  lose  during  thirty  years,  you  could  not  lose 
what  you  are  now  giving  up  at  a  single  stroke.  Put  me  in 
the  worst  and  weakest  city  of  those  which  you  are  giving 
up  and  I  will  gain  more  glory  holding  it  in  the  breach  than  I 
shall  ever  be  able  to  do,  under  a  peace  so  disadvantageous." 
When  Marshal  Brissac,  who  had  held  Piedmont  victoriously 
for  France,  heard  of  it,  he  exclaimed  in  despair,  "Oh  miser- 
able France,  to  what  loss  and  ruin  hast  thou  allowed  thyself 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  101 

to  be  thus  reduced,  Thou  who  wast  triumphant  over  all  the 
nations  of  Europe!"  ^ 

This  attitude  of  the  Italian  and  German  allies  of  France, 
rebels  against  the  ruling  influences  in  their  own  lands,  and 
the  chagrin  of  the  French  fighting  men,  has  on  the  whole 
dominated  history  which,  in  the  past,  has  been  to  a  great 
extent  written  by  men  who  could  not  escape  from  the 
delusion  that  the  strength  and  glory  of  a  nation  are  in- 
creased when  it  exercises  a  usurped  dominion  over  unwilling 
peoples  and  imposes  its  language  and  civilization  on  those 
who  hate  them.  But  in  modern  times,  when  some  historians 
have  begun  to  have  a  real  sympathy  for  the  rights  of  other 
nationalities  than  their  own,  this  "glory  of  France"  attitude 
toward  the  Peace  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  has  been  replaced 
by  one  more  critical  and  more  reasonable.  That  the  haste 
of  the  Constable  to  be  free  and  the  impatience  of  Henry  II, 
kept  France  from  taking  full  advantage  of  the  necessities  of 
Spain,  seems  probable.  But  the  Treaty  of  Cateau-Cam- 
bresis brought  France  two  great  advantages.  It  freed  her 
from  the  "chimera  of  Italian  conquest,"  and  it  brought 
her  permanent  defenses  where  they  were  most  needed. 
Calais  against  England,  Metz  against  Germany,  were  "bul- 
warks of  incalculable  value,"  worth  far  more  than  Piedmont 
for,  as  Etienne  Pasquier  wrote  at  the  time,  "Italy  was  never 
any  use  to  us  French  except  as  a  tomb  when  we  invaded 
it."  2 

After  the  game  whose  prize  was  the  control  of  the 
King's  mind,  was  lost,  Catherine  did  not  continue  the 
struggle  or  sulk  over  her  defeat.  Whatever  her  personal 
chagrin  may  have  been,  the  defeat  of  the  war  party  could 
not  have  been  a  very  serious  matter  to  her.  Her  natural 
inclinations  were  all  against  war  and  if  she  pleaded  for  it  in 
this  instance,  it  was  only  because  of  her  interest  in  Italy, 
strengthened  perhaps  by  a  temporary  pique  against  the 
Conitable.    For  desperate  fighting  on  the  northern  border 

*Cal.  Vcn.  18  App.  1559.    Villara,  316,  318. 
•Battifol.  Ranke.  Pasquier  (2).  Bk.  IV,  1. 


102  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

she  had  no  stomach  and  she  had  learned  once  for  all  the 
untrustworthiness  of  the  allies  of  France  in  Italy.  She 
returned  to  her  habitual  passive  acquiescence  in  her  hus- 
band's wishes — the  normal  role  of  a  Queen  of  France — and 
those  activities  as  titular  head  of  the  ladies  of  the  French 
court  which,  during  her  entire  life,  always  gave  her  great 
pleasure.  Catherine  had  a  very  womanly  delight  in  match- 
making, which  lasted  until  her  seventieth  year,  when  she 
arranged  the  marriage  of  her  favorite  grand-daughter. 
When  she  came  to  great  power  the  best  explanation  of  her 
changeable  policy  is  often  to  be  found  in  this  ruling  passion 
for  making  good  marriages  for  her  children.  It  probably 
helped  her  at  this  time  to  accept  her  defeat  and  write  a 
graceful  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Savoy,  one  of  the  two  bride- 
grooms of  the  peace. 

"My  Brother: 

"I  have  seen  in  a  letter  which  you  have  written  me  the  joy 
and  contentment  which  you  find  in  this  peace,  which  is  no  less 
great  on  my  part,  knowing  the  good  which  it  brings  to  all  Chris- 
tendom and  particularly  the  good  which  it  brings  to  you;  ...  as 
I  have  prayed  the  Count  of  Stropian  to  tell  you  more  at  length 
and  to  assure  you  that,  besides  the  honor  and  the  friendship 
which  I  have  all  my  life  had  for  Madame  my  sister  [her  sister- 
in-law  Marguerite]  ...  I  have  hoped  for  you  what  I  now  see 
accomplished;  remembering  the  alliance  which  in  other  days  your 
house  and  mine  had  with  one  another.  For,  knowing  her  as  I  do, 
I  am  certain  that,  besides  the  honor  which  this  will  bring  you, 
you  couldn't  receive  a  greater  happiness  and  contentment  than 
you  will  receive  with  her,  ...  I  recommend  myself  very  heartily 
to  your  good  grace  praying  God  to  keep  you  in  His  holy  keeping. 
From  Fontainebleau  this  25th  of  April,  1559. 

"Your  good  sister,  Caterine."^ 

She  began  at  once  to  make  preparations  for  the  cere- 
mony and  in  the  end  of  April  she  wrote  to  the  daughter  of 
the  Governor-General  of  Piedmont  asking  her  to  get  from 
her  father  a  passport  which  would  enable  the  merchants 
from  whom  "Count  Theophile  had  bought  some  cloth  of 

*  Letts.  I,  120. 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  103 

gold,  some  silk  and  other  clothes  while  he  was  passing 
through  Milan,  to  send  them  quickly  to  France  and  not  to 
allow  any  export  duty  to  be  charged  on  them  for  fear  of 
delaying  their  delivery."  ^  Catherine  had  need  of  fine 
clothes,  for  any  ceremonial  of  the  French  court  was  sure  to 
be  a  most  elaborate  afi"air. 

No  king  of  the  sporting  tendencies  of  Henry  II  could 
possibly  plan  a  great  public  ceremonial  without  giving  him- 
self a  chance  to  enjoy  the  favorite  amusement  of  a  tourna- 
ment. Magnificent  lists  were  prepared  for  three  days' 
jousting.  Henry  bore  himself  with  his  usual  skill  and  vigor; 
for  with  him  a  tournament  was  no  mere  formal  affair. 
When  he  was  a  young  man  the  Venetian  Ambassador 
records  that,  riding  against  his  father,  Francis  I,  he  got 
"such  a  blow  in  the  face  that  he  couldn't  forget  it  very 
soon,  because  it  took  away  a  great  piece  of  flesh."  When 
the  jousts  came  he  played  a  large  part  in  them.  He  broke 
a  lance  with  the  Duke  of  Savoy  and  another  with  the  Duke 
of  Guise.  He  ran  a  third  course  with  the  young  Count  of 
Montgomery,  captain  of  the  Scottish  Guards.  The  shock 
was  so  rude  that  the  King  lost  his  stirrup  and  was  visibly 
shaken  in  his  saddle.  Much  chagrined  to  have  been  almost 
unseated  in  the  presence  of  the  brilliant  assemblage  by  a 
young  man,  the  King  wanted  to  break  another  lance  with 
his  antagonist.  He  had  borrowed  a  war  horse  of  the  Duke 
of  Savoy  with  which  he  was  very  much  pleased,  and  the 
Duke  and  several  others  now  begged  him,  as  the  hour  was 
late,  not  to  ride  again.  His  wife  also  sent  a  messenger  from 
the  ladies'  stand  to  beg  him  not  to  ride  another  course,  for 
she  was  troubled  by  prophecies  of  diviners,  whom,  like 
many  patrons  of  the  Renascence,  she  was  wont  to  consult. 
But  he  said  he  would  only  ride  this  one  and  he  mounted  in 
such  haste  that  he  did  not  wait  to  have  the  vizor  of  his 
helmet  properly  adjusted.  "When  the  trumpet  sounded," 
the  English  Ambassador  writes,  "young  Mr.  de  Montgomery 
gave  him  such  a  counter-buff  as,  first  lighting  on  the  King's 

'Letts.  I,  121. 


104  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

head  and  taking  away  his  pannage  (whereupon  there  was  a 
great  plume  of  feathers),  which  was  fastened  to  his  head- 
piece with  iron,  did  break  his  staff  and  with  the  rest  of  the 
staff  hitting  the  King's  face,  he  drove  a  splinter  right  over 
his  eye  on  the  right  side,  the  force  of  which  stroke  was  so 
vehement  that  he  had  great  ado  to  keep  himself  on  horse- 
back and  the  horse  did  somewhat  yield."  ^ 

The  King  was  lifted  from  the  saddle  and  when  they 
took  off  his  helmet  a  flood  of  blood  covered  his  whole  head. 
The  Queen  and  the  Dauphin,  who  were  on  the  tribune, 
fainted  and  the  ladies  of  the  court  uttered  screams  of  alarm. 
They  carried  him  to  the  palace  which  was  at  the  side  of  the 
lists.  He  tried  to  walk  up  the  staircase  but  had  to  be  helped 
by  the  Constable,  the  Duke  of  Guise  and  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine.  Behind  him  came  another  group  carrying  the 
Dauphin,  who  still  lay  in  a  dead  faint.  They  took  a  splinter 
of  wood  four  inches  long  from  the  wound,  besides  four  other 
smaller  pieces.  The  King  bore  the  painful  operation  with 
extraordinary  courage,  and  it  was  at  first  believed  that  he 
would  escape  with  the  loss  of  one  eye,  but  blood  poisoning 
set  in  and  he  began  to  sink  into  lethargy  and  show  signs  of 
approaching  death.  Catherine  watched  by  the  bedside  of 
her  husband  and  would  not  allow  Diana  to  come  near  him. 
He  talked  with  spirit  at  intervals  and  asked  to  see  his  young 
captain  to  assure  him  that  he  knew  he  had  hurt  him  only 
by  accident.  He  even  ordered  that  the  feast  and  the  tour- 
nament should  be  begun  again  in  a  few  days.  But  in  spite 
of  these  rallies  he  continued  to  sink.  Better  surgical  knowl- 
edge might  perhaps  have  saved  him,  but  he  had  by  his  bed 
the  best  surgeons  and  doctors  of  the  day.  The  feeble 
Dauphin,  as  his  father  grew  worse,  wandered  about  the 
palace,  beating  his  head  against  the  walls  and  crying,  "My 
God!  how  can  I  live  if  my  father  dies."  The  King,  in  a 
lucid  interval,  sent  for  the  lad,  took  him  by  the  hand  and 
said,  "My  boy,  you  are  going  to  be  without  your  father, 
but  not  without  his  blessing.    I  pray  God  to  make  you 

*Rel.  I,  2,  p.  271.    Pasquier  (who  was  present),  Cal.  F.  1558-59,  p.  346, 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  105 

more  fortunate  than  I  have  been."  A  short  time  after  this 
scene,  and  eleven  days  after  the  accident,  Henry  II  died,  in 
his  forty-first  year.^ 

The  Venetian  Ambassador  reports  that  when  he  went  to 
pay  his  visit  of  condolence,  the  Queen  Mother  answered  in 
a  tone  of  voice  so  sad  and  feeble  that  no  one,  even  by  the 
strictest  attention,  could  hear  what  she  said.  Seven  months 
later  Marie  Stuart  wrote  to  her  mother,  "She  (the  Queen 
Mother),  is  still  so  grieved  and  suffered  so  much  during  the 
illness  of  the  late  King  that  I  am  afraid  she  will  have  a 
serious  illness  because  of  her  sorrow."  ^  That  the  loss  of 
this  unfaithful  but  kind  husband  was  a  great  grief  to  Cath- 
erine, we  know  not  only  from  what  she  or  others  said  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  but  in  many  ways.  Scandal  has  never 
been  more  common  or  more  malignant  than  at  the  court  of 
Henry  II  and  his  three  sons,  but  the  enemies  of  Catherine, 
who  afterwards  accused  her  of  every  possible  and  many 
impossible  crimes,  did  not  accuse  her  of  unfaithfulness  even 
to  her  husband's  memory.  She  had  always  been  accustomed 
to  dress  magnificently,  but  though  she  increased  the  band  of 
maids  of  honor  and  gentlewomen  which  had  made  the  court 
of  Henry  II  so  brilliant  and  ordered  them  to  dress  in  the 
most  superb  fashion,  she  never  again  put  on  anything  but 
black;  marking  festival  days  by  wearing  velvet.  There  is 
no  picture  of  her  after  the  age  of  forty  without  the  black 
headdress  of  a  widow.  It  was  in  the  taste  of  the  time  that 
she  took  as  her  new  coat  of  arms  a  heap  of  quick-lime  on 
which  tears  were  falling,  with  the  motto,  "ardorem  extincta 
testantur  vivere  flamma.  See!  the  glow  lingers  though  the 
flame  be  gone." 

The  gay  and  brilliant  Queen,  true  daughter  of  Florence, 
who  loved  to  ride  to  hounds  and  shoot  with  the  arbalest  and 
play  tennis,  who  made  the  most  beautiful  embroidery,  who 
was  fond  of  dances  and  comedies  and  "very  ready  to 
laugh,"  whose  quickness  at  repartee  was  often  shown  at  the 

^  Arch.  Mod.,  Romier  mss.  qtd.  11,  387  N. 
'Qtd.  Baschet  493,  LabanofE  I,  71. 


106  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

informal  receptions  enlivened  by  music  she  gave  in  her 
rooms  could  not  change  that  love  of  splendor  and  pleasure 
whose  indulgence  she  had  been  taught  to  consider  as  one  of 
the  duties  of  her  position.^  It  was  not  in  the  composition 
of  her  nervous  system,  as  apt  for  laughter  as  for  tears,  to 
remain  continuously  depressed,  but  of  all  the  sorrows  which 
came  to  her,  and  she  saw  nine  of  her  ten  children  and  most 
of  her  friends  die,  none  was  so  great  or  so  lasting  as  the 
death  of  her  husband.  All  during  her  life  she  gave  many 
signs  that  she  remembered  him  with  pleasure  and  regret. 
She  loved  to  talk  about  him.  Brantome  writes  in  his  gos- 
sipy style,  "I  have  heard  the  Queen  say  (she  did  me  the 
honor  sometimes  to  talk  to  me)  that  the  late  King  Henry 
was,  in  his  youth,  one  of  the  best  jumpers  in  the  Court  and 
no  one  could  match  him  except  Bonnivet — and  sometimes 
one  would  beat  and  sometimes  the  other — ^but  never  by 
more  than  a  couple  of  inches,  and  how  he  loved  to  jump 
ditches  of  twenty-two  and  twenty-three  feet,  which  they 
often  jumped,  and  how  once  Bonnivet  would  have  been 
drowned  in  a  ditch  he  tried  to  jump  if  the  King  had  not 
saved  him." 

She  remembered  how  he  used  to  laugh  at  one  of  her 
nurses  whose  stream  of  language  never  ceased.  Many  years 
after  his  death,  an  abbe,  writing  to  an  Italian  cardinal,  said, 
"the  Queen  does  not  talk  of  anything  except  of  the  friend- 
ship which  King  Henry  had  for  you  and  of  the  intimacies 
which  he  showed  you."  Seventeen  years  after  his  death 
she  gave  a  sum  of  money  for  masses  to  be  said  at  St.  Denis 
for  the  repose  of  her  husband's  soul.  Eight  years  later  she 
did  the  same  thing  in  the  Convent  of  the  Murate  at  Flor- 
ence. Within  a  year  of  her  death  at  seventy  she  wrote  to 
her  son  to  say  that  she  was  not  sorry  that  the  King  of 
Navarre  had  broken  an  engagement  with  her  of  the  greatest 
importance,  because  "Friday  has  been  for  me  so  unhappy 
because  it  was  the  day  when  the  King  your  father  was 
wounded ;  a  wound  which  brought  to  me  principally  and  to 

'Brant.,  VIII,  Vie  de  Cde.  M. 


HENRY  II,   HUSBAND  OP  CATHERINE   DE  MEDICIS 
From  a  painting  in  the  Louvre  attributed  to  Frangois  Clouet 


DISASTER  AND  SORROW  107 

all  the  kingdom  so  much  evil  that  I  cannot  think  on  that 
day  I  can  do  anything  good." 

It  was  in  sober  truth  that  Catherine  wrote  to  her  daugh- 
ter Elizabeth,  a  year  and  a  half  after  King  Henry's  deatii, 
when  her  oldest  son  had  followed  him  to  the  grave: 

"For  this  reason,  my  dear  daughter,  recommepd  yourself  well 
to  God,  because  you  have  seen  me  as  contented  as  you  are, 
without  a  thought  of  ever  having  any  other  trouble  than  not  to 
be  loved  as  much  as  I  wanted  to  be  by  the  King  your  father, 
who  honored  me  more  than  I  merited,  but  I  loved  him  so  much 
that  I  had  always  fear,  as  you  know,  in  many  ways,  and  God 
has  taken  him  away  from  me.  For  this,  my  dear  daughter, 
remember  me  and  let  me  serve  as  an  example,  so  that  you  do  not- 
trust  so  much  in  the  love  which  you  bear  your  husband  and  in 
the  honor  and  the  ease  which  you  have  at  this  present  moment, 
as  to  forget  to  recommend  yourself  to  Him  who  can  continue 
your  happiness  and  also  when  it  pleases  Him  put  you  into 
the  state  in  which  I  am:  for  I  would  sooner  die  than  see  you 
there,  from  the  fear  that  you  could  not  carry  so  much  trouble 
as  I  have  had  and  still  have,  which  I  am  sure  without  His  help 
I  would  not  know  how  to  carry. 

"Your  good  mother,  Caterine."  ^ 

*  Letts.  I,  568;  VII,  441;  IX,  187;  X,  411,  494;  Arch.  Nap.,  qtd.  Romier 
(1)  I,  313. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN   CONVULSION" 

The  death  of  Henry  II  in  his  prime  was  hailed  by  some 
of  his  subjects  with  the  solemn  joy  with  which  a  Hebrew 
prophet  hailed  the  death  of  an  open  enemy  of  God.  Ville- 
madon,  ancient  servitor  of  Marguerite,  Queen  of  Navarre, 
sister  of  Francis  I,  an  old  courtier  who  had  known  Catherine 
well  in  her  younger  days,  wrote  to  her  soon  after  the  death 
of  her  husband,  a  long  letter  in  which  he  said, 

"God,  deeply  angered  and  offended,  permitted  the  late  King 
to  fall  into  hardness  of  heart  so  far  as  to  make  himself  a  .  .  . 
complete  enemy  of  His  Holy  Word.  .  .  .  But  He  has  been  pleased 
to  show  that  He  knows  well  how  to  avenge  Himself  because  in 
the  middle  of  your  triumph  .  .  .  even  in  the  afternoon  on  whose 
morning  there  had  been  held  a  great  council  against  His  faithful 
ones,  He  caused  the  said  King  to  die  by  the  blow  of  a  lance.  .  .  . 
And,  oh!  extraordinary  fortune,  who  killed  him?  Was  it  not  the 
captain  who  but  a  little  while  before  by  his  commandment  had 
bound  and  imprisoned  the  innocent  du  Bourg,  whom  this  poor 
King  had  sworn  he  would  see  burned  with  his  own  eyes  before 
he  left  Paris?  What  has  become  of  his  eyes?  What  has  the 
hand  of  God  done  to  them?  Oh,  all  you  who  love  and  fear  the 
Almighty,  I  know  that  you  know  and  see  it  clearly."  * 

In  order  to  understand  this  letter  we  must  look  at  the 
nature  and  history  of  the  movement  among  the  French 
people  which  had  begun  soon  after  the  marriage  of  Cather- 
ine and  had  grown  in  spite  of  the  increasing  severity  with 
which  her  father-in-law  and  her  husband  had  tried  to  re- 
press it.  It  was  caused  by  the  spread  of  a  heresy  which 
denounced  as  contrary  to  the  word  of  God  some  of  the 
cwemonies  and  teachings  of  the  Universal  Church  of  which 

*Conde,  I,  627. 

108 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION  109 

the  National  Church  of  France  was  a  part.  Heresy  was  in 
the  air  when  Catherine  was  born,  and  the  movement  which 
was  to  influence  so  deeply  her  life  as  Queen  and  ruler  of 
France,  was  only  a  part  of  a  general  convulsion  of  European 
thought  and  society.  This  huge  convulsion  of  European 
society  in  whose  vortex  the  Ufe  of  Catherine  was  caught,  had 
three  causes.  First,  the  perception  very  wide-spread  among 
active-minded  men  of  the  deep  corruption  of  ecclesiastical 
institutions.  Second,  the  intellectual  movement  spoken  of 
as  the  Renascence.  Third,  the  advance  in  the  process  of 
the  formation  of  national  feeling  or  patriotism. 

The  fact  of  the  deep  corruption  of  the  Church  and  its 
great  influence  in  producing  heresy  and  schism,  is  plainly 
seen  in  almost  the  entire  literature  of  the  first  two  genera- 
tions of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  most  convincing  and 
the  only  unquestionable  evidence  of  it,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
words  of  men  who  never  became  heretics  and  died  in  the 
communion  of  the  ancient  mother.  This  is  the  only  sort  of 
evidence  upon  this  point  that  can  be  handled  without  the 
utmost  caution.  The  intensity  of  the  controversies  about 
religion — controversies  which  soon  added  the  sword  to  the 
pen  as  a  weapon,  and  plunged  Europe  into  a  hundred  years 
of  intermittent  war — the  active,  and  conscientious  hate 
bred  by  these  wars  and  controversies,  paralyzed  the  moral 
judgments  of  men.  In  the  sixteenth  century,  no  story  was 
too  bad  to  believe,  with  or  without  proof,  against  the  other 
side.  The  champions  of  this  great  intellectual  combat — the 
greatest  the  world  has  seen  since  the  struggle  of  Christian- 
ity and  paganism  in  the  days  of  the  Roman  Empire — in- 
herited also  the  bad  habit  of  medieval  polemics,  made 
worse  by  the  passions  of  the  Italian  fifteenth  century 
Humanists,  of  considering  attacks  upon  the  personal  char- 
acter of  any  adversary  as  a  legitimate,  almost  a  necessary 
part  of  serious  controversies.  Hence,  Martin  Luther  could 
not  judge  too  harshly  the  moral  conduct  of  that  active  de- 
fender of  the  Protestant  cause,  Philip  of  Hesse.  It  is  very 
illuminating  to  see  in  the  contemporary  correspondence  of 


110  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

the  friends  of  orthodoxy  that,  when  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots, 
had  taken  for  her  second  husband  the  heretic  Bothwell, 
they  were  inclined  to  give  credence  to  that  same  evidence 
that  she  had  murdered  her  second  husband  which  in  later 
days,  when  she  had  become  the  pillar  of  Catholicism  and 
the  martyr  of  the  faith,  seemed  to  them  only  the  basest 
slanders  of  her  enemies  and  the  foes  of  God's  truth.  Few 
men  who  felt  deeply  in  the  controversies  of  the  sixteenth 
century  could  be  just  to  their  oponents  or  were  even  willing 
to  try  to  be.  But  when  in  such  times  a  man  gives  testimony 
to  the  discredit  of  his  own  side,  the  reader  need  not  fear  that 
his  eyes  are  blinded  by  zeal  nor  his  judgment  warped  by 
prejudice. 

A  few  examples  of  utterances  of  men  who  never  ranged 
themselves  among  the  heretics  will  show  how  widely  the 
corruption  of  the  Church  and  her  need  of  sweeping  reforms 
were  accepted  as  facts  in  the  first  generations  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  Guicciardini,  the  Florentine  historian, 
wrote,  "It  is  not  possible  to  say  so  much  evil  of  the  Court 
of  Rome  that  it  would  not  be  truthfully  possible  to  say 
more,  because  it  is  an  infamy,  an  example  of  all  the  shames 
and  opprobriums  of  the  world.  ...  I  do  not  know  which 
displeases  me  most,  the  ambitions,  the  avarice  or  the  lust 
of  the  priests.  For  if  each  of  these  vices  is  odious  in  itself, 
each  one,  and  all  of  them  together  are  the  more  unfitting 
for  the  character  of  one  who  professes  that  his  Ufe  depends 
upon  God.  Nevertheless,  the  position  which  I  have  occu- 
pied in  the  service  of  several  Popes  has  compelled  me  to 
support  their  greatness  on  account  of  my  own  particular 
interests,  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  that  consideration,  I 
would  have  loved  Martin  Luther  as  I  love  myself,  not  to 
free  myself  from  the  laws  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the 
mode  in  which  it  is  interpreted  and  understood  generally, 
but  to  see  reduced  to  the  position  where  they  ought  to  be, 
that  crowd  of  scoundrels  (the  clergy)  that  is  to  say,  com- 
pelled to  live  either  without  vices  or  without  authority."  * 

*  Guicciardini  I,  27,  97. 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION    111 

Adrian  VI,  the  first  pope  elected  after  Luther's  revolt,  said 
in  his  message  to  the  German  Reichstag,  "We  freely  confess 
that  God  permits  this  persecution  of  His  church  because  of 
human  sins — especially  the  sins  of  prelates  and  priests  .  .  . 
we  know  very  well  that  from  the  Holy  See  itself  there  has 
proceeded  much  that  was  abominable  .  .  .  and  the  disease 
has  spread  from  the  head  to  the  members."  Erasmus  whose 
chief  works  were  sanctioned  by  the  Pope  wrote  in  1521: 
"The  corruption  of  the  church,  the  degeneracy  of  the  Holy 
See  are  universally  admitted."  ^  Pope  Pius  V  wrote  to  the 
King  of  France:  "The  vices  of  the  priests  were  the  first 
cause  of  heresy.  They  furnished  the  material  for  the  ser- 
mons of  the  heretics  to  draw  upon  the  Church  hatred  and 
disdain  and  to  disparage  her  doctrines.  The  ordinary 
ignorant  man  considers  less  what  the  priests  speak  than  he 
does  the  manner  in  which  they  live.  He  is  more  influenced 
by  their  example  than  he  is  by  their  words  and  their  bad 
morals  deprive  what  they  say  of  all  authority."  ^  The 
Emperor  of  Germany  in  1565  insisted  that  the  Pope  must 
allow  priests  to  marry,  "for  the  people  will  not  any  more 
accept  unmarried  priests,  because  they  all  keep  mistresses 
and  try  to  seduce  the  wives  of  others."  ^  The  Venetian 
Ambassador  writes  in  1565,  "The  prelates  of  Spain  live  ex- 
ceedingly luxuriously  and  there  are  very  few  of  them  who 
have  not  illegitimate  children  whom  they  do  not  conceal 
and  they  leave  nothing  undone  to  make  them  rich."  *  The 
Spanish  Ambassador  reported  to  Philip  II  in  1560  that  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  spoke  of  "scandals  in  the  church,  and 
the  abuses  of  ecclesiastics  in  words  which  could  not  be  ex- 
ceeded by  any  German"  (Lutheran).^  The  poet,  Pierre 
Gringoire,  wrote  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
"Simony  is  as  much  loved  now  as  it  was  by  Simon  Magus  and 
even  if  a  man  had  as  many  eyes  as  Argus  it  would  be  hard  for 

*  Lett,  to  Jonas. 
'Qtd.  Brimont  I,  395  N.  3. 
'Granvelle  (1),  IX,  225. 

*Rel.  I,  5,  p.  79.    Bratli,  159,  gives  titles  of  many  books  written  by 
orthodox  men  denouncing  the  corruption  in  the  Spanish  Church. 
'  A.  N.  K.  1493  f .  43,  Comp.  Forbes  338. 


112  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

him  to  see  perfect  pastors."  Two  generations  later  Ronsard 
wrote,  "But  if  Saint  Paul  should  come  back  here  below,  what 
would  he  say  of  our  young  prelates  who  take  no  care  of  their 
poor  flocks  whose  wool  they  shear  and  sometimes  strip  off 
even  the  skins:  all  of  whom  live  without  labor,  without 
preaching,  without  praying,  without  giving  a  good  example; 
perfumed,  barbered,  hangers  on  at  court,  lovers,  gallants, 
hunters  and  sportsmen,  who  waste  with  bad  women  that 
property  of  God  of  which  they  are  nothing  but  the  guardi- 
ans." 1 

But  this  fact  of  corruption,  though  it  would  undoubtedly 
in  time  have  produced  reforms,  would  not  of  itself  have  pro- 
duced the  great  schism  between  northern  and  southcm 
Christianity  which  is  usually  and  by  a  narrow,  unprecise  se 
of  words  spoken  of  as  "The  Reformation."  To  do  that  two 
other  forces  cooperated.  One  of  the  causes  was  the  move- 
ment which  historians  during  the  last  fifty  years,  have 
agreed  to  describe  as  the  Renascence.  This  term  has  been 
used  by  writers  in  two  senses.  At  first  it  was  employed  to 
denote  merely  the  results  of  the  revival  of  the  influence  of 
the  models  of  classic  antiquity  in  literature  and  the  plastic 
arts.  But  the  term  has  come  to  be  used  in  a  wider  and 
deeper  sense  to  denote  a  general  broadening  and  quickening 
of  the  human  spirit,  forming  new  judgments  and  finding 
new  sources  of  pleasure  and  new  methods  of  expression  in 
aU  branches  of  human  activity.  The  effect  of  the  Rena- 
scence is,  of  course,  most  visible  and  its  processes  can  be 
most  easily  traced  in  the  history  of  the  plastic  arts.  But 
the  central  and  most  characteristic  movement  of  the  Rena- 
scence was  the  spread  of  a  new  theory  of  education  which 
gradually  brought  in  a  new  way  of  looking  at  life,  made 
education  fashionable  among  the  classes  who  had  the  best 
chances  in  the  world  and  therefore  rapidly  changed  some  of 
the  ideas  prevalent  among  men  who  had  great  influence 
upon  human  institutions  and  the  condition  of  society. 

One  of  the  springs  of  this  central  movement  of  the 

*Gringoire  I,  91.    Ronsard  VII,  43. 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION  113 

Renascence  can  be  clearly  seen  in  the  life  and  writings  of 
Petrarch,  who  died  in  the  year  1374.  His  influence  fostered 
in  Italy  a  movement  in  favor  of  a  "New  Learning,"  defended 
and  carried  on  by  a  class  of  men  who  called  themselves  the 
Humanists  as  opposed  to  the  "Old  Learning"  of  the  Scholas- 
tics, who  were  quick  to  oppose  every  suggested  change  in 
the  substance  or  methods  of  instruction.  The  traditional 
sway  of  the  old  Scholastic  Learning  was  hotly  defended 
by  those  monastic  orders  whose  members  had  saved  learning 
during  the  Dark  Ages  and  built  up  the  great  medieval  uni- 
versities. One  chief  desire  of  the  Humanists  was  to  restore 
the  knowledge  of  Greek;  which,  at  the  birth  of  Petrarch, 
could  be  read,  so  far  as  we  know,  by  no  man  born  west  of  the 
Adriatic.  Another  strong  desire  of  the  Humanists  was  to 
get  back,  in  the  case  of  any  classic  author,  through  modem 
comments,  lo  the  original  text  or  manuscript  of  his  works. 
Humanism,  which  rapidly  found  patrons  among  most  of  the 
princes  and  nobles  of  Italy,  did  not  at  first  concern  itself 
very  much  with  religion.  A  certain  number  of  the  Human- 
ists became  pagans,  though  preserving  an  outward  respect 
for  the  ceremonies  and  doctrines  of  the  Church,  and  even 
the  more  pious  Humanists  (and  in  1447  Humanism  incar- 
nate ascended  the  papal  throne  in  the  person  of  Nicholas  V) 
did  not  apply  to  the  sacred  Scriptures  that  typical  curios- 
ity, that  desire  to  get  back  to  the  original  language  and  the 
original  manuscripts  which  was  one  of  their  marked  traits 
in  the  realm  of  classic  literature. 

But  when  Humanism  and  the  New  Learning  spread 
across  the  Alps,  as  it  did  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
it  took  on  a  new  spirit.  In  Spain,  England,  Switzerland, 
France,  and  Germany,  it  began  to  devote  itself  at  once  to 
the  study  of  the  Scriptures.  The  German  scholar  Reuchlin 
made  a  revived  knowledge  of  Hebrew  one  of  its  instruments 
and  henceforth  pure  Latin  as  opposed  to  medieval  scholas- 
tic Latin,  Greek  and  Hebrew,  formed  the  triad  typical  of  the 
New  Learning.  He  and  all  the  other  northern  Humanists 
were  denounced  as  patrons  of  studies  tending  to  worldliness 


114  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

and  heresy  by  the  monks,  most  of  whom  remained  pas- 
sionate advocates  of  the  Old  Learning.  The  relation  of  this 
movement  to  the  ancient  desire  for  ecclesiastical  reform, 
brought  to  a  very  acute  stage  by  the  corruption  and  Italian- 
ization  of  the  papacy  in  which  the  Italian  Renascence  had 
played  a  large  part,  is  evident  at  once.  Carrying  into  the 
sphere  of  religion,  that  refusal  to  accept  the  assertions  of 
mere  traditional  authority  as  a  sufficient  basis  for  truth, 
which  had  characterized  the  Italian  Humanists  in  the  realm 
of  classic  literature,  the  Transalpine  Humanists  began  to 
investigate  in  the  hght  of  the  Scriptures  read  in  the  original 
tongue,  not  only  the  evident  corruption  of  ecclesiastical 
institutions  but  the  whole  realm  of  the  usages,  doctrines, 
and  theories  of  the  Church.  In  this  field  of  Biblical  inter- 
pretation, where  a  man  determined  to  apply  all  the  details 
of  documents  written  in  remote  ages  as  a  complete  interpre- 
tation of  all  the  conditions  of  life  in  his  own  times,  can 
easily  find  confirmation  of  any  of  his  strong  beliefs,  there 
could  be  gathered  the  material  for  an  enormous  controversy 
about  religion. 

The  northern  Humanists  became  almost  without  excep- 
tion critics  of  the  existing  conditions  of  human  society  and 
of  the  Church.  They  had  it  pretty  much  all  their  own  way 
at  first,  because  the  advocates  of  the  Old  Learning  were  not 
able  to  stand  before  them  at  all  in  debate.  Men  like 
Reuchlin,  Erasmus,  More  and  Ximenes  swept  the  field.  It 
looked  as  if  they  might  almost  succeed  in  bringing  about  a 
peaceful  reform.  But  their  triumph  was  only  in  words. 
They  did  not  at  first  noticeably  affect  the  actual  condition 
of  the  Church  and  when  the  younger  generation  of  trans- 
alpine Humanism  led  by  men  like  Tyndale,  Farel,  Luther, 
Zwingli,  Calvin  and  Knox  took  the  road  that  led  toward 
reform  through  heresy  and  schism,  this  older  generation  of 
Humanists  who  had  criticised  the  Church  so  severely  stood 
by  her.  It  was  the  new  intellectual  attitude  bred  by  the 
New  Learning,  the  weapons  of  investigation  and  discussion 
furnished  by  the  New  Learning,  and  the  existence  among 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION  115 

the  nobles  and  burghers  of  Western  Europe  of  an  audience 
whose  minds  had  been  opened  and  their  spirits  quickened 
by  the  New  Learning,  which  underlay  and  rendered  possible 
and  significant  this  greatest  controversy  which  has  ever 
shaken  the  European  world. 

That  controversy  produced  its  tremendous  results  upon 
European  institutions  because  of  a  third  force  cooperating 
with  the  influence  of  the  Renascence  and  the  scandals  in  the 
administration  of  the  Church ;  the  growing  sense  of  national 
feeling  developed  into  the  modern  passion  of  patriotism. 

The  Roman  had  felt  very  strongly  the  passion  of  patriot- 
ism and  when  his  love  of  country  had  changed  into  that 
pride  of  race  which  led  him  to  conquer  as  much  of  the  world 
as  seemed  to  him  worth  conquering,  he  succeeded,  by  his 
skill  in  the  art  of  government,  in  creating  a  vast  unified 
body  of  subjects  of  the  Roman  State  which  was  informed  by 
the  soul  of  patriotism.  The  mass  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Empire  came  during  the  second  century  to  regard  the 
Empire  with  affection,  or  at  least  with  gratitude,  and  to 
consider  the  prospect  of  its  destruction  as  the  most  dread- 
ful of  all  conceivable  catastrophes.  But  the  Roman  energy 
which  had  created  the  Empire  was  not  sufficient  to  main- 
tain it  and  spreading  corruption  made  it,  in  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, a  huge  hulk  without  informing  spirit.  Its  inhabitants 
were  no  longer  willing  to  die  for  an  institution  that  had  no 
beneficent  or  inspiring  relation  to  their  lives.  The  bar- 
barians who  attempted  to  animate  the  pieces  of  the  vast 
machine  with  their  own  rude  force,  never  really  grasped  the 
Roman  conception  of  a  state  and  their  kingdoms  gave  no 
free  fields  for  the  regrowth  of  patriotism.  Even  the  power- 
ful personality  of  Charlemagne  was  not  able  to  mold  the  old 
Teuton  loyalty  to  the  chief  as  the  incarnation  of  war  lust, 
into  a  respect  for  law  and  the  love  of  country  and  the  cen- 
tury that  followed  his  death  was  only  the  ever  more  vivid 
demonstration  of  the  utter  failure  of  the  Teuton  desire  "to 
reestablish  the  Roman  name  and  state  by  Gothic  vigor." 
So,  because  there  was  no  real  state  rooted  in  the  affections 


m  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

of  the  people,  no  government  which  expressed  the  life  of 
any  large  mass  of  men,  there  came  mto  existence  a  substi- 
tute for  government,  a  sort  of  bastard  political  system 
which  was  the  child  not  of  authority  and  consent,  but  of 
force  and  necessity — feudalism. 

An  effort  was  indeed  begun  in  the  tenth  century  to 
restore  the  Roman  ideal  in  what  came  to  be  called  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  of  the  German  Nation.  But  whatever  else 
it  did  during  its  long  existence,  the  German  Empire  did  not 
resurrect  the  virtue  of  patriotism.  It  never  succeeded  in 
joining  the  forests  where  the  legions  of  Varus  had  perished 
to  the  valley  of  the  Tiber,  whence  they  marched,  so  as  to 
form  what  seemed  to  those  who  lived  in  it,  a  fatherland. 
Poets  like  Dante,  poetical  theorists  like  Marsilius,  might 
write  of  the  Empire,  great  warriors  like  the  Ottos,  the 
Henrys,  the  Fredericks,  might  fight  for  their  dreams  of  it, 
but  it  never  vitally  affected  the  mass  of  its  subjects  so  that 
they  loved  it  and  were  willing  to  die  for  it.  The  phrases  of 
Roman  law  and  organization  used  by  the  Imperial  chan- 
celleries, covered  a  congeries  of  jealous  and  hostile  feudal 
units  held  together  by  the  mailed  fist  of  a  fighting  overlord, 
whose  title  of  Emperor  was  almost  like  an  extra  plume  on 
his  helmet. 

Feudalism,  which  conquered  the  rather  fantastic  echoes 
of  Roman  feeling  throughout  all  western  Europe  between 
the  Baltic,  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees,  did  not  indeed  remain 
based  simply  upon  the  material  necessities  which  had 
brought  it  into  being:  the  need  of  defense  against  savage 
violence  and  the  attempts  by  communities  to  assure  to  their 
members  at  least  the  necessities  of  life.  Nothing  that  has 
any  historic  reality,  nothing  that  gives  to  masses  of  men 
more  than  a  continuance  of  existence  in  time,  can  remain 
based  upon  purely  material  necessities  and  desires.  Men 
living  under  feudal  conditions  began  instinctively  to  form 
what  is  spoken  of  as  the  feudal  system  and  to  inform  that 
feudal  system  with  spiritual  elements.  Certain  of  the  lower 
expressions  of  the  human  spirit  which  are  more  akin  to 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION  117 

inatinct  than  to  reason  or  affection  first  appeared.  The 
inhabitant  of  the  feudal  village  felt  that  local  attachment 
to  the  place  where  he  had  long  eaten  and  slept  and  produced 
his  kind,  which  we  see  in  rudimentary  form  even  in  the 
wild  beasts.  This  grew  into  local  pride  and  became  asso- 
ciated with  some  of  the  baser  parts  which  still  survive  in 
patriotism,  its  jealousy  and  dislike  of  strangers  and  the 
desire  to  conquer  and  exploit  them. 

The  higher  side  of  the  human  soul  began  to  express 
itself  in  the  germs  of  what  became  the  ideal  of  feudal  loy- 
alty between  man  and  man.  The  Church,  led  by  a  force 
within  her  that  at  every  crisis  in  her  history  strikes  a  sym- 
pathetic observer  as  greater  than  the  sum  of  the  intelligence 
and  goodness  of  her  oflficers  and  servants,  began  to  twine 
about  these  growing  nobler  elements  the  golden  threads  of 
the  teachings  of  Christ.  Chivalry,  a  strange  mixture  of 
heathen  strength,  Roman  virtue  and  the  gentle  manliness 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  came  into  existence.  The  ten  thou- 
sand political  units  which  at  the  end  of  the  tenth  century 
existed  between  the  Baltic  and  the  Pyrenees  were  gradually 
combined,  sometimes  forcibly  and  sometimes  by  federation, 
into  larger  units.  Local  customs  were  amalgamated  into 
general  customs  which  became  roughly  codified  and  hard- 
ened into  what  was  in  effect  a  series  of  provincial  laws. 
Great  political  ideas  began  to  reappear,  like  the  idea  of 
freedom  resting  on  authority;  though  still  a  sort  of  freedom 
which  could  be  defended  only  by  a  reference  to  a  particular 
bargain  recorded  in  a  written  agreement  or  charter.  Then 
we  see  the  idea  of  a  higher  justice  incarnate  in  the  royal 
person,  beginning  to  associate  in  the  popular  mind  the 
sword  of  the  king  with  the  invisible  sword  of  the  justice 
of  Almighty  God,  which  reckless  barons  who  saw  in  power 
nothing  but  privilege,  defied.  Then,  compounded  of  loyalty, 
a  sense  of  right,  liberty  guaranteed  by  authority,  and  the 
ideal  of  kingship  as  incarnated  in  a  ruler  like  St.  Louis, 
patriotism  began  to  form  in  the  hearts  and  in  the  minds 
of  men. 


118  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

In  France,  the  results  of  this  formation  of  the  passion  of 
patriotism  found  their  clearest  early  expression  in  Jeanne 
d'Arc.  But  it  also  became  conscious  of  itself  in  literature. 
The  fifteenth  century  poet,  Georges  Chastellain,  was  an 
adherent  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  a  powerful  vassal  of 
the  King  of  France,  who  resisted  that  weakening  of  feudal 
authority  which  was  the  necessary  step  in  the  formation  of 
nationality.  But  nevertheless  he  begins  his  chronicle  of  the 
wars  between  France  and  Burgundy  in  these  words:  "I 
who  am  not  English  but  French — who  am  neither  Spaniard 
nor  Italian  but  French,  the  servant  of  two  Frenchmen,  the 
one  King,  the  other  Duke,  I  have  written  of  their  deeds  and 
disputes."  And  in  later  times,  Clement  Marot  sang  the 
passion  of  patriotism  with  a  swing  that  prophesied  the 
Marseillaise.^ 

Now  in  those  dark  days  when  the  human  race  lacked 
both  patriotism  and  the  sense  of  devotion  to  law  incarnate 
in  the  Empire,  the  Holy  Roman  Catholic  Church,  the  one 
universal  institution  which  survived  the  break-up  of  Roman 
unity  and  Roman  civilization,  was  the  carrier  not  only  of 
religion  but  of  all  the  arts  and  sciences  which  survived. 
As  all  the  means  of  intercommunication,  physical  and 
spiritual,  decayed,  as  all  the  bonds  that  had  held  the  world 
together  were  loosed  and  Western  Europe  threatened  to 
become  a  mere  congeries  of  political  units  always  on  the 
verge  of  growing  smaller,  without  common  economic  inter- 
ests, without  facility  in  recording  ideas  in  language,  without 
common  hopes  and  even  without  common  fears,  it  was  the 
Church,  and  practically  the  Church  alone,  which  stiU  con- 
served the  sense  of  a  common  Christendom  on  which  rested 
the  possibility  of  recovering  or  forming  a  common  civiliza- 
tion. In  the  service  of  the  Church  there  grew  up  a  mode  of 
expression  in  art  common  to  large  masses  of  people,  a  way 
of  thinking  and  a  system  of  education  common  to  all 
Western  Europe  and  a  sense  of  common  peril  which  enabled 
the  fighting  men  of  Europe  to  muster  at  the  call  of  the  head 

'  Marot.  177. 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION  119 

of  the  Church  under  the  banner  of  the  cross  to  march 
against  their  common  enemy  under  the  green  banner  of  the 
Prophet.  These  incalculable  services  insensibly  bound 
men's  hearts  to  the  Church  as  the  one  common  heritage  of 
that  portion  of  humanity  of  which  they  were  a  part  and 
made  successive  generations  bow  in  awe  before  the  ideal  of 
the  Papacy  as  the  Vicegerent  of  Christ,  the  incarnate  Jus- 
tice and  Truth  of  God  upon  earth :  perhaps  the  most  daring 
and  majestic  institutional  ideal  which  has  ever  mastered 
the  faith  and  the  hopes  of  great  masses  of  men. 

Even  when  the  line  of  powerful  popes  from  Hildebrand 
to  Innocent  III,  filled  with  a  sense  of  the  evils  of  the  world 
they  had  left  their  monk's  cells  to  save,  was  carried  beyond 
the  consciousness  of  being  the  incarnation  of  moral  and 
spiritual  authority  to  the  claim  of  a  supreme  unquestion- 
able right  to  depose  or  make  emperors  and  kings,  their  idea 
was  by  no  means  rejected  by  the  medieval  world  as  a  whole. 
The  emperors  fought  the  claim  of  the  popes  until  the 
Papacy  destroyed  the  great  Imperial  House  of  Hohen- 
staufen,  the  Kings  of  France  refused  to  acknowledge  that 
God  had  given  the  Pope  the  sword  of  temporal  as  well  as 
spiritual  power,  but  outside  of  France,  Innocent  III  and  his 
successors  made  good  their  claim  that  "Rome  holds  both 
the  keys  of  Heaven  and  the  government  of  earth."  ^  The 
kings  of  Sicily,  Portugal,  Aragon,  Castile,  England,  Sweden, 
Denmark,  Bohemia,  Poland,  Hungary,  Servia,  Bosnia  and 
Bulgaria,  acknowledged  that  they  held  their  crowns  as 
feudal  vassals  of  the  Papacy.  But  power  brought  enormous 
wealth;  for  Rome  became  the  center  of  the  ecclesiastical 
patronage  of  the  world  and  the  highest  court  of  appeal  for  a 
large  part  of  the  judicial  procedure  of  the  world.  The  accu- 
mulation of  patronage  and  wealth  brought  corruption  and 
by  a  reflex  from  the  movement  which  had  carried  the 
Church  into  politics,  pohtics  crept  into  the  Church.  The 
attempt  on  the  part  of  Boniface  VIII  at  the  beginning  of 
the  fourteenth  century  to  master  the  crown  of  France 

*Qtd.  Luchaire,  28,  ib.  31. 


120  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

brought  about  the  unexpected  result  that  the  crown  of 
France  mastered  the  college  of  cardinals,  who  elected  the 
Popes.  The  Papacy  left  Rome  and  went  to  Avignon,  where 
it  remained  for  seventy  years  and  the  English  soldiers  in 
the  Hundred  Years  War  sang,  "If  the  Pope  is  French,  Jesus 
Christ  is  English."  i 

The  international  and  universal  genius  which  was  in- 
herent in  the  Papacy,  soon  began  to  struggle  against  this 
domination  and  finally  brought  the  great  institution  back 
to  Rome.  But  political  and  particularistic  influence  had 
become  too  firmly  rooted  in  the  college  of  cardinals  to 
suffer  a  peaceful  return  to  the  old  universalistic  ideals  of 
the  Church.  There  followed  the  great  schism  which  after- 
ward became  the  triple-schism,  in  which  three  colleges  of 
cardinals  elected  three  separate  lines  of  popes;  each  send- 
ing his  rivals  to  hell  and  claiming  to  be  the  only  true  Vice- 
gerent of  God.  It  seemed  as  if  the  venerable  institution 
would  break  to  pieces  of  its  own  weight  and  perish.  But 
the  attachment  of  Europe  to  the  old  ideal  of  their  fore- 
fathers was  too  deep  and  too  strong  to  be  destroyed  even  by 
this  spectacle.  The  delegates  of  the  whole  medieval  politi- 
cal world  and  of  all  medieval  society,  assembled  in  the 
Council  of  Constance  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury to  save  the  papacy.  They  deposed  or  forced  the  resig- 
nation of  all  three  of  the  popes,  burnt  at  the  stake  the 
leaders  of  the  Bohemian  heretics  for  refusing  to  acknowl- 
edge the  absolute  authority  of  the  Universal  Church,  and 
elected  a  new  pope  in  a  conclave  where  representatives  of 
the  nations  sat  with  the  Cardinals.  After  thus  reaffirming 
their  affection  for  the  ideal  of  the  papacy  and  their  faith 
in  the  Church,  they  commissioned  the  Pope  to  make  a 
detailed  reform  of  the  Church,  reporting  at  intervals  of  ten 
years  to  a  general  Council  of  Christendom. 

But  the  ancient  zeal  which  could  lift  great  ecclesiastics 
to  the  level  of  the  magnificent  ideal  of  the  medieval  papacy, 
could  not  be  revived  by  legislation.    The  popes  never  will- 

*Von  Reumont  (1),  II,  721. 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION  121 

ingly  called  a  council  nor  reported  any  general  reform  of 
the  Church,  so  that  the  fifteenth  century  demonstrated  the 
failure  of  the  plan  of  Christendom  assembled  in  its  begin- 
ning at  Constance  to  restore  the  great  ideal  of  the  Church. 
The  new  method  of  education  of  the  Italian  Renascence  and 
the  new  view  of  life  of  the  Humanist,  raised  to  the  throne  of 
St.  Peter  some  popes  who  were  capable  of  understanding 
the  Catholic  spirit,  but  particularistic  influences  were  again 
too  strong  for  the  power  of  a  universal  ideal.  A  cursory 
examination  of  the  lives  of  the  popes  from  Sixtus  IV  to 
Paul  III  (1471-1534)  as  they  are  recorded  in  the  pages  of  a 
scholarly  Catholic  historian  is  enough  to  assure  any  ob- 
server that,  as  a  whole,  they  thought  more  of  their  position 
as  rulers  of  the  States  of  the  Church  and  princes  of  Italy 
than  they  did  of  their  position  as  Vicegerents  of  Christ  rul- 
ing the  spiritual  interests  of  Christendom.  These  pontiffs 
and  many  of  their  cardinals  differed  little  except  in  dress 
from  the  princes  of  the  Renascence  among  whom  they  Uved. 
It  seemed  to  great  numbers  of  her  sons  north  of  the  Alps 
that  the  papacy  had  become  "Italianate."  * 

This  second  enormous  distortion  of  that  magnificent 
ideal  of  the  papacy  which  had  swayed  the  imagination  and 
commanded  the  obedience  of  so  many  generations  of  men, 
did  not  take  place  without  violent  and  continuous  protest  in 
all  parts  of  Christendom.  Men  had  not  forgotten  the  ex- 
ample which  their  forefathers  had  set  them  in  the  Council 
of  Constance.  The  failure  of  the  abortive  Council  of  Basle 
did  not  suppress  this  protest  and  from  the  time  of  Savona- 
rola (who  should  not  be  reckoned  among  Protestants)  until 
the  actual  assembly  of  the  reforming  Cou'ncil  of  Trent  in 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  idea  of  calling 
another  general  council  to  repeat  what  had  been  begun  at 
Constance  was  always  in  the  air.  If  such  a  council  as  the 
Council  of  Constance  could  have  been  assembled  about  the 
year  1500,  it  is  possible  that  the  schism  between  Teutonic 

* "  'Anglus  Italizatus,  demon  incarnatus,'  and  80  say  French  and  Get* 
mans  of  their  coimtrymen."    Cal.  F.  1666,  p.  162. 


122  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

and  Latin  Christianity  might  long  have  been  postponed — 
perhaps  altogether  avoided.  The  papacy,  by  successfully 
resisting  every  suggestion  for  general  reform  in  head  and 
members  undertaken  by  Christendom  as  a  whole,  brought 
into  play  a  new  historic  force  and,  in  a  way,  drove  its 
harsher  critics  to  another  program  of  reform. 

In  the  minds  of  a  great  number  of  the  men  of  Europe 
national  ideals  had  now  completely  taken  the  place,  in 
every  sphere  except  the  ecclesiastical  sphere,  of  universal- 
istic  ideals,  and  even  there  concordats  gave  to  the  Churches 
of  Spain  and  France  a  large  degree  of  national  independence. 
When  the  fact  that  the  world  was  confronted  in  the  Church 
not  with  a  theory  but  a  situation,  became  too  obvious  for 
millions  of  men  to  blink  it,  the  desire  to  restore  the  ancient 
mother  to  her  purity  was  in  many  hearts  destroyed  by 
anger  at  abuses.  Then  the  old  consoling  picture  to  which 
generations,  in  spite  of  every  disappointment,  had  so  long 
clung,  of  a  Vicegerent  of  Christ  who  was  the  common  father 
of  all  Christians,  began  in  parts  of  Europe  to  be  replaced  by 
a  passionate  desire  to  revolt  against  one  whom  many  had 
come  to  think  of  as  a  triple-tiaraed  tyrant  who  spent  the 
alms  of  the  faithful  in  maintaining  the  worldly  splendor  of 
an  Italian  potentate.  So  the  Catholic  Reformation  of  which 
Erasmus  and  his  friends  dreamed,  became  swallowed  up  in 
a  great  schism — or  rather  in  a  great  series  of  schisms  by 
which  the  people  of  England,  Scotland,  some  of  the  cantons 
of  Switzerland,  some  of  the  provinces  of  the  Netherlands, 
some  States  of  the  Empire,  and  the  Scandinavian  kingdoms 
established  their  own  national  churches.  And  a  part  of  the 
people  of  Poland,  and  France,  tried  to  do  so. 

In  this  world  movement,  the  greatest  revolutionary 
convulsion  which  had  touched  western  Europe  since  the 
barbarian  emigrations  of  the  fifth  century,  the  life  of 
Catherine  de'  Medici,  who  had  come  over  the  Alps  twenty- 
six  years  before  an  ignorant  little  girl,  was,  at  the  death  of 
her  husband,  inextricably  involved.     For  the  faction  of 


THE  GREAT  EUROPEAN  CONVULSION  123 

schismatic  and  heretical  reform  had  found  one  of  its  ablest 
and  most  energetic  leaders  in  the  person  of  a  Frenchman, 
John  Calvin,  and  the  struggle  between  his  followers  and  the 
partisans  of  orthodoxy  for  the  control  of  the  French  Church 
was,  for  thirty  years,  to  write  the  history  of  France  in  blood. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN"  FRANCE 

In  order  to  understand  the  spread  in  France  of  what  was 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  Protestantism,  but  more  commonly- 
called  by  its  friends  the  "Reformed"  and  by  its  enemies  the 
"Pretended  Reformed"  Religion,  it  is  necessary  to  keep 
clearly  in  mind  the  three  elements  of  the  general  movement 
of  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century  suggested  in 
the  preceding  chapter.  These  elements  were  not  strange 
either  to  the  family  from  which  Catherine  was  sprung,  or 
to  the  royal  house  into  which  she  married.  One  of  the 
most  striking  records  of  the  consciousness  among  intelligent 
men  of  the  corruption  of  the  Church,  is  contained  in  the 
letter  written  by  her  great-grandfather  Lorenzo  to  her 
great-uncle,  when  at  the  age  of  seventeen  he  went  to  Rome 
to  take  his  place  in  the  College  of  Cardinals.  This  lad, 
when  he  became  Pope  Leo  X,  was  an  energetic  patron  of 
the  New  Learning,  continued  the  encouragement  of  the 
study  of  Greek  which  had  been  planted  in  Italy  largely 
by  the  efforts  of  his  family,  and  accepted  the  dedication 
of  Ximenes'  Complutensian  Polyglot  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment of  Erasmus,  which  were  the  signs  and  symbols  of  the 
direction  taken  north  of  the  Alps  by  the  New  Learning. 
Catherine's  father-in-law,  Francis  I,  had  been  sure  of  the 
corruption  of  the  Church  and  talked  of  its  reform:  though 
he  was  never  willing  by  giving  up  the  concordat  with  Leo 
X,  to  lose  the  control  of  the  patronage  of  the  French  Church 
which  he,  his  son  and  grandson  used  so  profanely,  to  put 
many  benefices  into  the  hands  of  soldiers,  courtiers  or 
women,  who  spent  their  revenues  and  neglected  their  duties. 
From  the  very  beginning  of  his  reign,  Francis  I  was  an 
intelligent  patron  of  the  Renascence.    This  appears  not 

124 


THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE         123 

only  in  his  bringing  from  Italy  artists  and  architects  who 
in  the  building  and  decorating  of  his  chateaux  influenced 
the  rise  and  development  of  the  style  of  the  French  Rena- 
scence, but  even  more  clearly  in  the  way  he  advanced  in 
France  the  distinctive  cause  of  the  New  Learning  as  against 
the  Old  Learning.  The  controversy  between  these  two 
methods  of  scholarship  and  instruction,  which  really  rep- 
resented two  different  ways  of  looking  at  life,  became  furi- 
ous in  the  University  of  Paris  soon  after  his  accession  to 
the  throne.  Francis  I  took  strong  and  uncompromising 
sides  with  the  New  Learning.  He  appointed  a  learned 
Greek  refugee  from  Constantinople  his  librarian  and  when 
Beda,  Professor  of  Theology  at  the  Sorbonne  and  leader  of 
the  adherents  of  the  Old  Learning,  told  him  that  "Hebrew 
and  Greek  would  be  the  source  of  many  heresies,"  ^  he 
could  not  turn  the  King  from  the  project  of  founding  at  the 
University  of  Paris  a  Royal  College  of  the  New  Learning. 
He  never  indeed  felt  able  to  spare  the  money  for  the  mag- 
nificent building  which  he  planned,  but  he  did  found  chaira 
in  Hebrew,  in  Greek  and  in  Mathematics. 

Soon  after  the  establishment  of  these  professorships,  a 
movement  which  ended  in  revolt  against  the  Roman  author- 
ity was  launched,  almost  simultaneously,  by  Martin  Luther 
in  Saxony  and  by  Ulrich  Zwingli  in  the  Canton  of  Zurich  of 
the  Swiss  Confederation.  The  writings  of  Luther  spread 
very  rapidly  into  other  countries  and  in  1521  he  was  for- 
mally condemned  as  a  heretic  by  the  Sorbonne.  The  new 
doctrines  found  a  ready  reception  in  a  circle  of  men,  already 
somewhat  critical  of  the  ancient  usages  and  doctrines  of  the 
Church,  who  gathered  around  Brigonnet,  Bishop  of  Meaux, 
not  far  from  Paris.  This  little  group  of  incipient  heretics 
soon  attracted  attention  and  by  a  very  vigorous  persecution 
was  dispersed  or  compelled  to  recant.  Several  of  their 
simpler  disciples,  persisting  in  the  new  doctrines,  perished 
at  the  stake  as  heretics. 

The  King's  favorite  sister,  Marguerite  of  Navarre,  a 

^Estienne  II,  150. 


126  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

woman  of  very  active  mind,  was  much  interested  in  the 
New  Learning,  and  incUned  to  protect  the  men  whose  new 
doctrines  seemed  to  her  so  closely  related  to  Humanism, 
against  a  persecution  whose  zealots  were  found  in  the  ranks 
of  the  strongest  advocates  of  the  Old  Learning.  But  on  the 
return  of  Francis  I  from  his  captivity  in  Madrid  after  the 
battle  of  Pavia,  the  persecution  became  more  severe. 
Heresy  seemed  to  grow  with  persecution  and  in  1533  the 
Rector  of  the  University  of  Paris,  a  certain  Nicolas  Cop, 
delivered  an  oration  which  plainly  advocated  the  new  doc- 
trines of  protest.  This  oration  had  been  written  by  a  young 
student,  John  Calvin,  and  both  Cop  and  Calvin  had  to  leave 
Paris. 

The  conflict  between  the  orthodox  supporters  of  papal 
authority  and  the  defenders  of  the  ecclesiastical  revolts  in 
various  countries,  which  had  now  developed  into  doctrinal 
divergence,  had  become  exceedingly  bitter.  Nevertheless, 
there  were  on  both  sides  men  who  believed  that  it  might  be 
possible  to  proceed  by  way  of  a  general  council  to  such  a 
reformation  of  the  Church  as  might  remove  her  worst 
abuses  and  concede  such  variations  in  practice,  or  such 
increased  breadth  in  formulas  of  belief,  as  might  satisfy  all 
parties  and  effect  a  reconciliation.  We  have  already  seen 
that  Francis  I  was  strongly  inclined  by  his  political  necessi- 
ties to  make  friends  with  the  Protestant  princes  of  Ger- 
many, many  of  whom  were  not  entirely  committed  to  irrec- 
oncilable schism;  and  he  accepted  the  suggestion  of  the 
learned  and  moderate  Bishop  of  Paris  that  his  brother,  the 
Sieur  de  Langey,  who  was  being  sent  by  the  King  as  an 
envoy  to  these  Protestant  princes,  should  make  overtures  to 
Melancthon,  Luther's  closest  friend,  for  the  formation  of 
a  program  of  reconciliation  looking  towards  reunion. 
Melancthon  prepared  a  tentative  program  which  made  a 
very  favorable  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the  King,  and 
it  seems  probable  that  the  persecution  of  heresy  in  France 
would  have  been  much  relaxed  but  for  an  action  taken  by 
some  of  the  most  violent  heretics. 


THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE         127 

The  posting  of  placards  containing  satires  or  invectives 
had  been  practised  by  both  sides  in  this  great  religious 
controversy,  A  placard  was  now  written  by  some  of  the 
French  refugees  and  printed  in  Switzerland  attacking  the 
mass,  which  was  the  very  center  of  CathoUc  ritual  and,  in 
many  ways,  the  center  of  those  CathoUc  doctrines  which 
had  been  involved  in  the  controversy  with  the  new  heresy. 
It  called  the  "Pope  and  all  his  vermin  of  cardinals,  bishops, 
monks  and  priests,  sayers  of  masses,  with  all  who  consent 
thereunto,  false  prophets,  damnable  deceivers,  apostates, 
wolves,  false  shepherds,  idolaters,  seducers,  liars  and  execra- 
ble blasphemers,  murderers  of  souls,  renouncers  of  Jesus 
Christ,  of  his  death  and  passion,  false  witnesses,  traitors, 
thieves  and  robbers  of  the  honor  of  God  and  more  detest- 
able than  devils."  It  goes  on  to  say  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
mass:  "Were  there  no  other  error  than  this  in  your  infernal 
theology,  you  would  well  deserve  the  stake.  Light  then 
your  fires  to  burn  yourselves;  not  us,  who  refuse  to  believe 
in  your  idols,  your  new  Gods  and  your  new  Christs."  ^ 
Copies  of  this  placard  were  posted  through  the  streets  of 
Paris,  and  one  was  affixed  to  the  very  door  of  the  King's 
bed-chamber  in  the  Chateau  at  Amboise.  The  wrath  of 
the  King  was  deep  and  it  was  shared  by  the  all-powerful 
Constable.  The  persecution  was  rekindled  with  greater 
intensity  than  before  and  John  Calvin,  who  had  been  living 
quietly  in  the  provinces,  now  fled  across  the  border  and 
began  that  career  which  made  him  the  absentee  leader  of 
the  French  Reformed  Church. 

He  began  it  by  writing  the  first  draft  of  his  "Institutions 
of  the  Christian  Religion."  It  was  preceded  by  an  address 
to  the  King  in  defense  of  his  persecuted  subjects  which  is 
one  of  the  monuments  of  early  French  prose.  Near  the  end 
of  his  life,  in  the  preface  of  another  work,  Calvin  explained 
why  he  hastily  finished  this  treatise  in  1536,  and  also  why 
he  wrote  for  the  Latin  work,  a  preface  in  French.  His 
purpose  was  to  set  forth,  in  definite  theological  form,  the 

*C5hronique,  ptd.  464. 


128  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

system  of  doctrine  of  the  French  heretics.  He  believed  that 
they  were  the  victims  of  slander.  The  increase  in  the 
number  of  executions  for  heresy  which  had  followed  the 
affair  of  the  placards,  had  aroused  a  very  strong  protest  in 
the  Protestant  states  of  Germany  and  the  Protestant  can- 
tons of  Switzerland,  and  both  of  these  places  were  the  best 
sources  in  the  world  from  which  to  draw  mercenary  soldiers. 
French  armies  had  long  contained  contingents  of  Swiss,  and 
Francis  I  hoped  to  include  in  his  army  regiments  of  reiters, 
or  German  cavalry,  drawn  to  his  standard  by  a  common 
enmity  to  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  helped  by  the  lure  of 
French  pay.  The  King,  therefore,  did  not  wish  to  break  too 
sharply,  either  with  the  followers  of  Luther  or  of  Zwingli, 
and  he  replied  to  their  protests  against  the  persecutions  of 
the  French  heretics,  that  these  people  had  not  been  put  to 
death  for  holding  what  the  Lutherans  or  the  Zwinglians 
considered  to  be  true,  but  because  they  were  Anabaptists, 
who  denied  the  validity  of  infant  baptism  and  insisted  that 
every  adult  believer  must  be  rebaptized. 

In  order  to  understand  how  serious  a  charge  this  was  in 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  world,  including  the  Protestants,  we 
must  briefly  review  the  history  of  Anabaptism.  Its  ad- 
herents had  been  very  pitilessly  persecuted  and  repressed 
by  Roman  Catholics,  Lutherans  and  Zwinglians  alike,  not 
simply  or  chiefly  because  of  their  teachings  in  regard  to 
baptism,  but  largely  because  they  thought  that  no  magis- 
trate had  any  right  to  interfere  either  with  the  liberty  of 
conscience  or  the  liberty  of  worship.  The  idea  of  religious 
liberty  seemed  to  almost  all  churchmen,  whether  orthodox 
or  schismatic,  and  to  almost  all  writers  upon  politics,  a  very- 
dangerous  idea  which  would  result  in  the  destruction  of  the 
institutions  of  human  society  and  a  relapse  into  anarchy. 
The  first  leaders  of  the  Anabaptists  were,  therefore,  in  the 
various  countries  of  Europe,  exterminated  by  the  law. 
Their  place  was  taken  by  other  leaders  who  laid  aside  this 
doctrine,  that  the  magistrates  had  no  right  to  limit  religious 
liberty,  for  another  doctrine  which  seemed  to  the  rulers  of 


THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE         129 

the  world  even  more  dangerous.  A  set  of  men  whose  ap- 
pearance ^  and  actions  indicate  quite  plainly  that  they  lived 
near  to  the  border  line  between  sanity  and  insanity,  because 
of  the  disordering  power  of  a  fixed  idea,  began  to  proclaim 
that  the  time  foretold  by  the  prophets  for  the  establishment 
by  God's  elect  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  was  come 
and  that  they  and  their  followers  were  the  elect.  Three 
months  before  the  placards  were  posted,  the  world  had  seen 
a  very  striking  illustration  of  the  dangers  to  which  the 
growing  influence  of  these  men  might  lead.  The  city  of 
Miinster,  on  the  lower  Rhine,  which  had  revolted  against 
its  bishop  and  become  Lutheran,  was  mastered  by  a  band 
of  these  Anabaptists  of  the  new  school,  refugees  from  the 
persecutions  in  Holland.  They  seized  for  the  common  use 
all  the  property  of  the  city,  forced  polygamy  upon  all  the 
women  and  accepted  the  claim  of  one  of  their  number  that 
he  was  sent  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the  Kingdom  of  God 
upon  earth.  They  sent  out  missionaries  to  advise  peoples 
of  the  New  Kingdom  of  God,  and  proclaim  the  extermina- 
tion of  the  Godless  who  refused  to  obey  this  divinely  in- 
spired command.  Some  of  the  Protestants,  including 
Luther  himself,  had  been  inclined  to  believe  that  the  day  of 
the  Last  Judgment  was  close  at  hand,  but  none  of  them  felt 
that  the  coming  Kingdom  of  God  would  take  this  form,  and 
the  affair  of  Miinster  struck  a  chill  of  fear  and  horror 
through  the  world.  Nevertheless,  the  Kingdom  of  God  in 
Miinster  maintained  itself  for  two  years,  and  was  subdued 
only  after  a  long  siege,  in  which  the  troops  of  Roman 
Catholic  and  Lutheran  German  States  joined. 

To  accuse  the  French  Reformers  just  at  this  time  of 
being  Anabaptists  was,  therefore,  to  suggest  in  the  eyes  of 
all  men  of  the  day,  that  they  were  the  enemies  of  God  and 
men.  Calvin,  who  was  "lying  hidden  at  Basle,"  thought  it 
would  be  "cowardice  and  treachery"  if  he  did  not  come  to 
the  defense  of  his  brethren.  "You  yourself,  sire,"  he  wrote 
to  the  King,  "can  be  a  witness  in  regard  to  the  great  number 

*  Gresbeck's  Journal,  qtd.  Bezold,  710. 


130  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

of  false  calumnies  by  which  our  religion  is  every  day  de- 
famed in  your  presence.  That  is  to  say,  that  the  only 
outcom-e  of  our  doctrine  is  to  ruin  all  authorities  and  moral 
order,  trouble  the  peace,  abolish  the  laws  and  destroy  the 
rights  of  society  and  private  property.  .  .  .  Nevertheless, 
you  do  not  hear  more  than  the  smallest  portion  of  these 
calumnies.  Because  among  the  people  there  are  circulated 
reports  so  horrible  that,  if  they  were  true,  the  world  would, 
with  right,  judge  the  disciples  of  such  a  doctrine  worthy  of  a 
thousand  stakes  and  a  thousand  gallows."  ^ 

This  appeal  had  no  effect  upon  the  intention  of  Francis 
I,  and  the  persecution  continued  throughout  his  reign. 

On  his  accession  to  the  throne  Henry  II,  with  that 
orthodox  piety  which  was  a  marked  trait  of  his  character, 
continued  the  persecutions  of  his  father  with  even  greater 
zeal.  He  created  in  various  parts  of  the  kingdom  courts 
with  the  special  function  of  punishing  heresy,  which  soon 
earned  the  popular  name  of  "Burning  Chambers."  The  list 
of  those  who  perished  at  the  stake  indicates  that,  at  first, 
the  new  doctrine  and  the  new  organization  found  their 
adherents  chiefly  among  the  smaller  bourgeoisie.  But,  as 
time  went  on,  they  began  to  gain  influence  among  the 
smaller  country  gentry,  the  more  wealthy  and  influential 
commercial  classes  and  the  so-called  noblesse  de  la  robe:  a 
sort  of  inferior  nobility  composed  of  those  who  practised  the 
higher  branches  of  the  profession  of  the  law  and  served  in 
the  more  important  offices  of  diplomacy,  judicature  and 
administration. 

This  change  is  plainly  indicated  by  what  is  spoken  of  as 
the  affair  of  the  Rue  St.  Jacques,  toward  the  end  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  II  in  the  autumn  of  1557.  Three  or  four  hun- 
dred of  the  new  religion  were  assembled  at  a  private  house 
in  Paris  for  a  secret  celebration  of  the  holy  communion. 
The  neighbors  became  aware  of  it;  word  was  spread,  and 
the  whole  quarter  of  the  city  rose  in  arms.  The  people 
barricaded  the  streets  to  prevent  the  escape  of  the  heretica 

*  Preface,  Psalms.  Pref.  Institutes. 


THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE         131 

until  the  police  arrived.  In  this  desperate  situation  between 
the  prison  and  the  stake  and  the  stones  and  weapons  of  a 
mob,  the  assembly  determined  to  force  their  way  out;  the 
men  "who  wore  swords  marching  first;"  which  means  that 
there  were  gentlemen  among  them.  A  large  part  of  the 
assembly  escaped  but  a  number  of  the  women  remained  in 
the  house  and  were  arrested  by  the  police.  The  minister  at 
the  head  of  the  secret  parish  church  wrote  that  "the  women 
who  were  taken  prisoners  were,  with  the  exception  of  four 
or  five,  all  ladies  of  great  houses."  One  of  the  first  to  perish 
at  the  stake  was  the  widow  of  a  nobleman  of  considerable 
estate  with  friends  at  court  who  tried  to  purchase  her  life. 
The  most  influential  of  the  friends  who  tried  to  save  this 
young  widow  was  Queen  Catherine  herself.  The  friends  of 
the  prisoners  used  every  possible  legal  device  to  delay  the 
process,  but  seven  had  gone  to  the  stake  in  quick  succession 
when  the  growth  of  the  death  roll  was  interrupted  by  the 
intervention  of  the  Protestant  cantons  of  Switzerland  and 
the  German  Protestant  princes.  The  King  needed  these 
allies  too  much  in  his  foreign  policy  to  break  with  them  and 
the  lives  of  the  rest  of  the  prisoners  were  spared.^ 

Not  long  after  this  time,  we  know  that  the  new  doctrine 
and  the  new  organization  were  beginning  to  appeal  to  some 
of  the  higher  nobility  of  France.  In  particular,  they  at- 
tracted the  favorable  attention  of  the  great  house  of  Bour- 
bon, princes  of  the  blood,  and  of  the  house  of  Chatillon,  the 
cadet  branch  of  the  house  of  Montmorency.  In  the  spring 
of  1558,  the  King  of  Navarre  and  a  number  of  his  gentle- 
men appeared  publicly  in  Paris  at  a  large  assembly  which 
met  for  the  purpose  of  singing  the  psalms  in  the  French 
translation  of  Clement  Marot:  an  action  which,  for  reasons 
not  perfectly  clear,  was  interpreted  as  hostile  to  the  ortho- 
dox doctrines  and  the  ancient  ecclesiastical  institution.  The 
attention  of  the  King  had  been  called  already  to  the  heret- 
ical sentiments  of  one  of  the  chief  ofl&cers  of  his  army, 
d'Andelot,  Captain  General  of  French  Infantry.   D'Andelot, 

»Hist.  Ecc,  139,  141. 


132  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

taken  prisoner  at  the  surrender  of  Saint  Quentin,  had 
adopted  the  heretic  standpoint  in  the  Spanish  prison.  After 
he  came  back  to  France,  he  not  only  had  preaching  on  his 
own  French  estate  and  through  the  towns  of  Brittany  and 
the  Loire,  but  he  openly  attended  great  meetings  for  the  new 
worship  held  just  outside  the  walls  of  Paris  every  night  by 
five  or  six  thousand  persons.  The  King  sent  for  d'Andelot 
and  had  with  him  a  stormy  interview.  On  his  way  out  of 
the  palace,  the  Captain  General  was  arrested  and  thrown 
into  prison.  He  could  get  released  only  by  making  some 
sort  of  formal  submission  which,  although  it  included  no 
explicit  abjuration  of  his  own  belief,  always  seemed  to  him 
afterward  a  great  failure  in  courage. 

In  spite  of  all  these  attempts  by  Catherine's  husband  to 
crush  heresy,  it  continued  to  spread,  and  during  the  twelve 
years  of  his  reign  France  was  covered  (more  thickly  in  some 
provinces  than  in  others)  with  a  network  of  churches,  secret 
and  illegal,  organized  on  a  model  drafted  by  John  Calvin, 
who  had  taken  refuge  in  the  city  of  Geneva,  whence  he 
sent  out  his  scholars  to  act  as  missionaries  and  pastors. 
It  must  not  be  supposed  that  these  new  churches  were 
standing  for  freedom  of  worship  or  even  for  freedom  of 
conscience.  They  were  standing  for  the  truth  as  they  held 
it  and  it  seemed  just  as  clear  to  them  as  it  did  to  the  King, 
that  it  was  the  duty  of  church  and  state  to  repress  false 
doctrines.  For  instance,  there  was  a  secret  church  in  the 
city  of  Beaugency  whose  members  were  of  course  all  in 
danger  of  the  stake.  One  of  them  announced  the  idea  that 
the  magistrates  had  no  right  to  punish  heresy.  He  was 
called  before  a  meeting  of  the  church  consistory,  which 
included  three  pastors,  and  his  error  was  shown  him  by 
such  "strong  reasons  founded  on  the  word  of  God"  that  he 
withdrew  it  and  signed  a  statement  that  it  was  the  Christian 
duty  of  the  magistrates  to  suppress  obstinate  heresy,  by 
force.  Thus  believing  that  they  stood  for  truth  which 
scorned  toleration  and  demanded  the  right  of  way  as  the 
word  of  God  and  further  encouraged  by  the  patronage  of  a 


THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE  133 

considerable  number  of  the  classes  who  represented  the  idea 
of  authority  and  the  profession  of  arms,  the  minds  of  many 
of  the  members  of  the  French  Reformed  churches  began  to 
turn  from  the  early  idea  of  mere  passive  resistance  which 
would  make  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  the  seed  of  the  Church. 
But  for  some  time  their  idea  was  strenuously  opposed,  and 
on  the  whole  with  success,  by  their  intellectual  leader,  John 
Calvin.  He  was  intensely  conscious  of  the  cruel  wrongs 
suffered  by  his  fellow  believers,  but  his  extremely  logical 
mind  had  not  yet  found  for  their  right  to  defend  by  arms 
the  liberty  of  proclaiming  the  word  of  God,  a  statement 
tolerable  to  his  temperament  dominated  by  an  intense  love 
of  law. 

Henry  II  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  had  watched  with 
growing  alarm  this  increase  of  heresy  in  spite  of  all  his 
efforts  to  suppress  it  and  his  alarm  had  been  an  additional 
reason  for  making  peace  with  the  hereditary  enemy  of  his 
house  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  his  own  kingdoir^j^  T    -^^ 
is  no  mere  conjecture  founded  on  what  foUor^  ^^  ooenlv  in 
of  Cateau-Cambresis.    On  the  26th  of  June,  1^^  strondv  the 
of  Alva  wrote  to  Philip  II  a  letter  as  follows,  ^y^^  Constable 
stable  came  to  talk  with  me  and  said  the  King  sci.  ^^.^^  after 
thank  me  many  times  because  I  had  offered,  on  the  \.  ^  ^^^^j^ 
your  Majesty,  all  the  help  he  wanted  for  reformation  ij^jg 
punishment  in  matters  of  religion  in  this  Kingdom,  in  whitv^g 
every  day  he  saw  more  harm  being  done.  .  .  .  He  said 
Geneva  was  the  sewer  of  all  this  wickedness,  whither  his 
vassals  and  those  of  your  Majesty  who  were  infected,  fled 
and  from  there  sent  emissaries  to  make  trouble  in  your 
Majesty's  realm  and  in  his — that  it  would  be  well  that  some 
agreement  should  be  made  between  your  Majesty  and  him 
to  remove  Geneva  out  of  the  world."  ^ 

The  King,  who  had  sought  peace  to  suppress  heresy, 
seems  to  have  become  fully  aware  that  this  new  organiza- 
tion was  consolidating  and  increasing  its  powers  of  resist- 
ance.   He  found  it  undesirable  and  perhaps  dangerous  to 

*A.  N.  K.  1492  (43). 


134  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

continue  the  attacks,  which  he  began  in  the  case  of  d'Ande- 
lot,  upon  that  very  free  class  which  was  called  the  nobility 
of  the  sword,  because  he  must  always  depend  on  them  for 
the  officers  of  his  army.  He  determined,  therefore,  to  carry 
out  his  repression  in  the  class  of  the  noblesse  de  la  robe. 
The  chief  court  of  the  kingdom  was  the  Parlement  of 
Paris  and  it  was  reported  to  him  that  a  large  number  of  the 
councillors  of  the  court  were  at  least  so  far  favorable  to  the 
new  opinions  and  organization  that  they  were  trying  to 
check  by  every  possible  means  the  repression  of  the  secret 
Reformed  church  by  force.  This  report  seems  to  have  been 
brought  to  the  King  by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who,  in  a 
general  meeting  of  the  entire  Parlement,  accused  the  chief 
president  and  the  bulk  of  the  councillors  of  being  favorers 
of  heresy.  "You  are  the  reason,"  he  said,  "why  not  only 
Poitiers  but  all  Poictou,  even  to  the  country  of  Bordeaux, 
Toulouse,  Provence  and  France  in  general,  is  completely 
filled  with  this  rermin  which  increases  and  swarms  because 
it  puts  its  trust  in  you." 

It  was  an  ancient  custom  of  the  court  to  call  three  or  four 
times  a  year  a  meetmg  to  consider  the  "morals  and  conver- 
sation" of  its  members.  Such  a  meeting  had  the  name  of 
mercurial.^  The  Procurator  General  of  the  King  now  pro- 
posed a  mercurial  for  the  especial  purpose  of  asking  the 
opinion  of  the  councillors  in  regard  to  religion.  The  meet- 
ing was  opened  by  the  King,  attended  by  all  the  chief 
functionaries  of  church  and  state,  most  of  whom  were 
members  of  the  Parlement  in  the  sense  that  they  had  the 
right  to  be  present  at  any  of  its  full  assemblies.  Each  of 
the  councillors  and  presidents,  that  is  to  say,  the  professional 
members  of  the  court  to  whom  its  real  work  was  usually 
left,  was  asked  in  turn  to  declare  his  opinion  upon  the  mat- 
ter of  the  enforcing  of  the  royal  edict  in  regard  to  religion. 
The  English  Ambassador  reported  to  Queen  Elizabeth  that, 
so  far  as  he  could  learn,  "out  of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty 
presidents  and  councillors  at  the  court  there  were  only 

*  Conde  I,  218. 


THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE  135 

fourteen  councillors  and  one  president  who  were  really  in 
favor  of  that  policy  of  very  strict  repression  which  had  been 
put  into  the  King's  mind  by  the  influence  of  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine ;  the  rest  of  the  court  was  against  the  poUcy  of  the 
Cardinal."  ^  This  is  doubtless  an  exaggeration  of  the 
amount  of  sympathy  for  the  Reformed  church  which  ex- 
isted in  the  highest  court  of  France,  but  it  is  probably  true, 
as  the  Ambassador  suggests,  that  the  forcible  resistance  to 
agents  of  persecution  and  the  tumultuous  interruption  of 
orthodox  preachers  who  attacked  the  doctrines  of  the  re- 
form, taking  place  already  in  many  places  in  France,  were 
encouraged  not  only  by  the  knowledge  that  some  of  the 
chief  nobles  were  patrons  of  the  new  organization,  but  also 
by  the  knowledge  that  it  had  sympathizers  not  willing  to  be 
too  hard  upon  it,  in  the  chief  court  of  the  Kingdom. 

A  large  number  of  the  councillors,  when  asked  to  express 
their  opinion  on  the  religious  situation,  gave  ambiguous 
replies,  a  considerable  number  of  them  were  strongly  in 
favor  of  orthodoxy,  but  some  of  them  spoke  so  openly  in 
favor  of  the  new  doctrines  and  denounced  so  strongly  the 
abuses  in  the  Church,  that  the  King  ordered  the  Constable 
to  arrest  two  of  them  on  the  spot,  and  sent  his  guards  after 
the  close  of  the  meeting  to  arrest  six  others.  Three  of  them 
escaped  by  flight,  but  five  were  committed  to  the  Bastille. 
After  an  interrogatory  by  an  ecclesiastical  commission,  the 
ablest  and  the  boldest  of  these  men,  du  Bourg,  of  the  cadet 
branch  of  a  wealthy  and  distinguished  family  of  Languedoc, 
was  officially  declared  a  heretic  and  handed  over  to  the  law 
for  punishment.^  The  learned  du  Bourg,  while  he  did  not  in 
the  least  attempt  to  conceal  his  belief,  used  every  resource 
of  the  law  in  his  own  defense  and  the  struggle  between  him 
and  the  authorities  of  church  and  state  was  watched  with 
the  deepest  and  most  excited  attention  by  the  entire  secret 
Reformed  church  of  France  and  all  its  patrons  and  friends 
both  within  and  without  the  kingdom.    Just  at  this  critical 

*  Forbes,  126.    Paris,  13  June,  1559. 
"De  la  Place  Ed.,  1565,  pp.  19,  29. 


136  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

point,  Henry  II  died,  leaving  the  struggle  with  heresy  and 
schism  to  his  feeble  son,  Francis  II. 

The  exact  strength  of  the  Re/ormed  church  after  forty 
years  of  propaganda  and  persecution  cannot  be  accurately 
estimated.  Until  toward  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  II, 
the  new  doctrine  and  the  new  organization  made  compara- 
tively little  progress  except  among  the  humbler  classes  of 
the  population.  It  seemed,  however,  even  at  this  time,  to 
appeal  strongly  to  some  students  of  the  universities  and  to 
a  few  of  the  higher  classes  because  of  a  certain  air  of  intel- 
lectual freedom  about  it  and  because  of  its  early  close  con- 
nection with  the  movement  of  the  New  Learning.  It  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  in  the  list  of  martyrs  given  in  the 
Book  of  Martyrs  during  the  forty  years  from  1515  to  1555 
there  appear  the  names  of  only  three  nobles  and  two  of  the 
agricultural  peasants.  This  is  not  conclusive,  because  one 
class  may  have  been  too  humble  to  attract  attention  and 
the  other  too  powerful  to  be  subject  to  punishment,  until 
the  whole  power  of  the  state  was  turned  in  the  direction  of 
persecution.  But  there  are  other  indications  that,  just  at 
the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  II,  large  numbers  of  the 
nobles  of  all  ranks  accepted  the  new  doctrine  or  joined  the 
new  secret  organization.  This  was  apparent  to  the  Spanish 
Ambassador,  who  wrote,  "The  flower  of  the  nation  is  the 
most  spoiled.  The  nobility  especially  has  taken  the  liberty 
they  call  evangelic."  ^ 

Some  things  imply  that  not  all  of  these  new  adherents 
to  the  new  Church  were  moved  by  purely  religious  consid- 
erations. A  wave  of  opposition  to  the  secular  influence  of 
the  clergy  had  been  for  some  time  sweeping  over  all  Europe. 
Their  wealth  and  their  political  and  judicial  power  had  for 
more  than  a  generation  excited  great  dislike  among  the 
nobles  and  burghers  in  many  countries.  The  same  motives 
which  made  many  of  the  nobles  of  England,  Scotland  and 
the  German  States  ready  to  support  schism  without  any 
particular  religious  or  intellectual  interest  in  heresy,  were 

*  Haton  I,  61,  Crespin  A.  N.  K.  ctd.  Mignet  Jour,  des  Savants,  July,  1857. 


THE  REFORMED  CHURCH  IN  FRANCE  137 

plainly  operative  among  the  nobles  of  France.  But  when 
all  this  has  been  said,  and  it  has  been  pointed  out  over  and 
over  again  by  the  more  modern  writers  upon  the  history  of 
the  civil  wars  about  religion  in  France,  it  still  remains  true 
that  the  prevailing  motive  among  the  adherents  and  de- 
fenders of  the  French  Reform  was  the  religious  motive.  The 
men  who,  at  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  II,  were  getting 
ready  to  become  the  leading  champions  of  the  new  doctrine 
and  organization,  did  not  any  of  them  die  at  the  stake.  But 
there  is  no  reason  to  accept  as  gospel  the  sneer  of  their 
fierce  enemy,  Monluc,  about  "Great  nobles  not  getting 
themselves  burnt  very  often  for  the  word  of  God."  ^  They 
fell  on  the  battlefield,  many  of  them  were  assassinated,  but 
this  does  not  prove  they  would  not  have  gone  to  the  stake  as 
the  country  gentleman  du  Bourg,  nephew  of  a  chancellor  of 
France  finally  did — if  death  had  met  them  that  way. 

'Monluc,  III,  140. 


CHAPTER  IX 

UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE — THE  CONSPIRACY  OP 
AMBOISE  AND  THE  HUGUENOTS 

The  new  King  was  fifteen  years  and  six  months  old  and 
therefore  according  to  the  ancient  custom  of  France  eight- 
een months  past  the  age  when  a  King  might  be  crowned 
and  rule  for  himself,  but  for  Francis  II  to  rule  actually  the 
kingdom  of  France  in  such  a  crisis  was  impossible.  He  was 
a  boy  of  small  intellectual  ability,  feeble  health  and  un- 
stable nervous  equilibrium,  immoderately  given  to  violent 
exercise,  and  very  fond  of  the  pretty  little  girl  who  was  his 
wife.  From  the  first  he  was  disposed  to  leave  the  business 
of  state  entirely  in  the  hands  of  her  uncles,  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine  and  the  Duke  of  Guise.  This  freed  him  as 
much  as  possible  from  the  work  of  governing,  for  which  he 
had  neither  ability  nor  inclination,  and  enabled  him  to 
devote  nearly  as  much  time  as  he  chose  to  hunting  and  other 
sports.  If  perchance  he  developed  a  will  of  his  own,  his 
virile  little  Queen  was  always  able  to  control  him  and  she 
seems  to  have  trusted  completely  to  her  uncles.  The  situa- 
tion is  briefly  sketched  by  the  English  Ambassador  a  few 
days  after  the  death  of  Catherine's  husband  and  the  acces- 
sion of  her  oldest  son.  "The  House  of  Guise  now  ruleth, 
with  whom  I  am  in  very  small  grace,  and  the  Queen  of 
Scotland,  who  is  a  great  doer  here,  and  taketh  all  upon  her, 
hath  so  small  an  opinion  of  me  as  I  shall  be  able  to  do  small 
service  withal,  therefore  it  may  like  you  to  use  means  for 
my  revocation.  .  .  .  The  French  King  hath  already  given 
the  Constable  to  understand  that  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine 
and  the  Duke  of  Guise  will  manage  his  whole  affairs."  And 
the  same  report  of  the  absolute  control  of  all  things  by  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  Duke  of  Guise  is  made  by 

138 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  139 

everybody  who  had  opportunity  to  know  the  French  court 
during  the  short  and  feeble  life  of  Francis  II.  The  Tuscan 
Ambassador  wrote  home,  "The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  is  Pope 
and  King  in  France."  * 

How  the  Queen  Dowager  Catherine  really  felt  about  this 
complete  supremacy  of  the  faction  of  the  Guise  with  whom, 
although  she  disliked  them,  she  had  of  late  years  been 
acting,  we  do  not  know.  Every  outward  honor  was  shown 
her,  the  new  King,  her  son,  even  insisting  upon  waiting 
upon  her  at  table,  and  there  was  a  private  staircase  leading 
from  her  room  to  the  King's  room.  Financially  she  was 
more  than  independent,  for  the  usual  allowance  of  100,000 
francs  for  a  Queen  Dowager  was  made  300,000.  The 
woman  for  whom  Catherine  had  so  long  concealed  her  hate 
was  humiliated.  "The  King  said  today  to  Madame  Valen- 
tinois  that  because  of  the  evil  influence  she  had  exerted 
over  the  King,  his  father,  she  merited  great  punishment, 
but  that  in  his  royal  mercy  he  did  not  want  to  cause  her 
more  inconvenience.  Nevertheless  she  must  restore  all  the 
jewels  which  the  King  had  given  to  her."  In  addition,  she 
was  compelled  to  retire  from  court.^ 

The  Guise  rivalled  their  nephew  and  niece  in  the  great 
outward  honor  which  they  paid  to  the  Queen  Dowager. 
They  were  accustomed  to  say  of  anything  of  which  explana- 
tion was  asked,  that  "if  it  pleased  the  Queen  Mother  to  do 
so  and  so,  they  also  were  pleased,  because  the  King  cannot 
and  ought  not,  ever  to  depart  from  the  wishes  of  the  Queen 
Mother."  It  was  even  arranged  that  in  all  important  pub- 
lic acts  this  formula  was  to  be  used  at  the  beginning:  "This 
being  the  good  pleasure  of  the  Queen,  my  Mother  and  Lady, 
I  also  approving  the  things  which  are  in  accord  with  her 
advice,  I  am  content,  and  I  command  that,  etc."  But  in 
spite  of  this  outward  honor  paid  to  Catherine  it  is  quite 
evident  from  the  reports  of  the  ambassadors  and  her  own 
correspondence,  that,  although  she  was  present  at  all  the 

» Forbes  I,  160,  166,  Neg.  Tosc.  Ill,  404. 
•Cal,  Yen.  1560,  pp.  109,  127.  Baschet  494. 


140  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

councils  of  state,  the  field  of  her  activity  was  very  limited 
and  her  influence  in  important  matters  very  small.^ 

We  have  only  twenty-one  letters  of  hers  written  during 
the  six  months  after  the  death  of  her  husband.  Four  of 
these  show  that  she  did  not  abandon  her  old  habit  of  trying 
to  use  her  influence  in  every  way  in  order  to  help  her  old 
servitors  and  friends.  The  most  important  of  these  is  a 
letter  to  the  Duke  of  Florence  in  regard  to  the  papal 
election: 

"I  beg  you,  as  affectionately  as  I  can,  my  cousin,  on  account 
of  the  good  influence  which  I  know  you  have  with  several  of 
the  cardinals  of  the  Holy  College,  to  be  willing  to  aid,  so  far 
as  you  can,  my  cousin,  the  Cardinal  of  Ferrara  to  become  Pope, 
because,  beside  the  fact  that  he  is  at  present  so  closely  allied 
to  you  as  he  is,  and  that  you  may  expect  all  possible  help  .  .  . 
towards  the  greatness  of  your  house  from  him,  you  are  assured 
that  you  could  not  do,  at  the  present  moment,  any  greater  or 
more  agreeable  pleasure  to  me  than  this,  and  also  to  the  King, 
my  son.  Otherwise,  and  in  case  this  shall  not  be  possible,  I  beg 
you  again  to  make  every  effort  that  you  can  toward  the  same 
end  in  favor  of  my  cousin,  the  Cardinal  of  Tournon  .  .  .  and  I 
believe  that  there  cannot  be  found  in  the  Holy  College  any 
personage  who  is  better  adapted  to  acquit  himself  of  the  duties 
of  that  position  in  a  more  holy  manner."  ^ 

This  effort  of  Catherine's  was  hopeless  from  the  start. 
The  Spanish  party  had  twice  as  many  votes  in  the  conclave 
as  the  French  party  and  by  the  beginning  of  November  the 
election  of  Ferrara  was  manifestly  impossible.  The  Bishop 
of  Viterbo  wrote  to  Catherine  asking  her  support  for  the 
candidacy  of  the  Cardinal  de'  Medici,  "because  all  of  the 
other  candidates  who  are  more  desired  by  the  King,  your 
son,  are  meeting  .  .  .  probably  insuperable  difficulties."  ^ 

About  two  months  later  Catherine  received  the  following 
letter  from  the  Cardinal  of  Sens: 

*Cal.  Vcn.  113,  Baschet  496. 

•Letts.  I,  124. 

•  Neg.  Frangois  II,  137. 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  141 

"Madame: — 

"You  will  hear  by  the  letter  which  the  Cardinal  of  Guise  is 
writing  you,  the  creation  of  a  Pope,  and  how  all  things  took 
place  which  concern  the  affairs  of  the  King.  This  will  prevent 
me  from  writing  any  further  to  you  about  it  in  the  present  letter, 
only  I  wish  to  inform  you,  madame,  that  you  alone  are  the 
reason  why  he  is  Pope;  .  .  .  which  causes  me  to  believe  that  the 
affairs  of  the  King  and  of  his  subjects  and  your  own  affairs  will 
have  a  better  chance,  and  that  in  everything  which  depends 
upon  the  will  of  our  Holy  Father,  you  will  have  a  large  part  and 
power,  and  though  the  two  predecessors  of  this  Pope  may  have 
failed  in  like  matters  and  have  not  given  due  consideration  to 
them,  it  appears  to  me  that  this  one  will  not  follow  the  mistakes 
of  the  others,  because  he  is  a  very  estimable  man."  ^ 

This  letter  is  a  good  specimen  of  the  kind  of  flattery  to 
which  Catherine  was  subject,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Medici, 
who  was  in  no  way  related  to  her,^  was  on  the  King  of 
Spain's  list  as  an  alternate  candidate,  and  had  been  all  along 
the  real  candidate  of  the  Duke  of  Florence.  The  French 
party  had  finally  concurred  in  his  election  only  because  they 
were  wearied  out  by  four  months'  discussion,  and  despaired 
of  electing  any  one  of  the  men  they  really  wanted. 

If  Catherine  resented  an  arrangement  of  the  French 
government,  which,  while  paying  every  outward  demon- 
stration of  respect,  left  her  no  real  power  except  the  exercise 
of  personal  influence  in  small  matters  of  patronage,  she  gave 
no  sign  of  it.  But  there  were  people  in  France  whose 
resentment  over  the  power  and  the  policy  of  the  house  of 
Guise  was  more  dangerous.  These  opponents  of  the  Guise 
may  be  classified  under  three  heads:  first,  the  house  of 
Bourbon,  comprising  all  the  princes  of  the  blood  royal  not 
in  the  direct  line,  together  with  all  their  retainers;  second, 
the  house  of  Montmorency  and  a  large  number  of  the 
nobility,  who  regarded  that  house  as  the  leading  family  of 
France  and  looked  upon  the  Guise  as  foreigners  and  inter- 
lopers ;  third,  the  secret  and  illegal  Reformed  churches,  now 
organized  into  a  national  synod.   Each  of  these  discontented 

*  Neg.  Frangois  II,  208. 
*MUUer,  Th.,  228,  N.  2. 


142  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

parties  endeavored   to  get  the  help  or  the  support  of 
Catherine. 

Not  long  after  the  death  of  the  King  the  Constable 
had  a  private  interview  with  the  Queen  Mother,  in  which 
he  urged  her  to  keep  the  organization  of  the  state  very 
much  as  it  was,  in  order,  during  the  youth  of  the  King,  not 
to  offend  any  of  the  princes  of  the  blood,  and  offered  to  use 
the  authority  which  belonged  to  him,  to  help  her  in  this 
task.  The  story  has  come  down  to  us,  through  one  of 
the  two  men  with  a  chance  to  know  something  of  the 
inside  of  things,  who  have  written  the  history  of  the  reign 
of  Francis  II,  that  this  interview  between  the  Queen  Mother 
and  the  Constable  was  an  exceedingly  stormy  one,  because 
Catherine  accused  the  Constable  of  having  said  during  her 
husband's  life  "that  no  one  of  her  husband's  children  looked 
like  him  except  his  natural  daughter  Diana,  and  added  that 
if  she  did  simple  justice,  she  would  punish  him  now  by  hav- 
ing his  head  cut  off."  The  pages  of  this  chronicler  are  filled 
with  piquant  anecdotes  of  the  sort  and  therefore  he  has  been 
very  extensively  quoted  by  all  who  have  written  about  the 
reign  of  Francis  II.  But  he  is  so  intensely  partisan  in 
defense  of  the  party  of  opposition  and  so  hostile  to  the 
House  of  Guise,  that  he  took  without  question  many  tales, 
improbable  in  themselves,  and  either  omitted  or  denied  by 
other  sources.  He  is  not  only  demonstrably  inaccurate,  but 
deeply  prejudiced  and  much  less  reliance  ought  to  be  put 
upon  him  in  the  future  by  writers  who  are  not  willing  to 
sacrifice  truth  to  picturesqueness.  This  story  is  unknown 
to  at  least  two  other  witnesses  who  had  good  means  of 
knowing  about  it,  and  the  English  Ambassador  reports  that 
Catherine  parted  most  graciously  with  her  husband's  old 
friend.  His  account  is  borne  out  by  three  affectionate 
letters  which  Catherine  wrote  to  the  Constable  within  four 
months  of  the  time  this  stormy  interview  is  supposed  to 
have  taken  place.  The  first,  written  within  a  few  weeks, 
ends:  "I  shall  be  very  glad  when  I  shall  have  some  news 
of  you,  which  I  pray  God  may  be  as  good  as  are  hoped  for 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  143 

by  your  gossip  and  friend,  Caterine."  But  if  Catherine  did 
not  quarrel  with  the  Constable,  the  King  made  it  plain  that 
he  had  no  use  for  his  services.  The  Constable  retired  to 
his  country  place  at  Chantilly  and  remained  for  months  in 
seclusion,  while  his  adherents  were  one  by  one  quietly  ousted 
from  their  positions  in  administration.^ 

According  to  ancient  custom,  Anthony  of  Bourbon,  first 
prince  of  the  blood,  now  King  of  Navairre  through  his  recent 
marriage  to  the  heiress  of  that  little  kingdom  on  the 
southern  border  of  France,  would  have  'had  chief  place  in  the 
government  during  the  minority  of  a  king.  He  had  not, 
however,  been  in  any  hurry  to  come  lap  to  court  from  the 
south,  where  he  held  in  the  two  great  jjrovinces  of  Guienne 
and  Gascony  the  office  of  governor,  ar^i  office  filled  in  each 
of  the  provinces  of  France  by  the  King,  but  tending  to 
become  hereditary  and  bringing  to  its  h^-olders  a  large  meas- 
ure of  almost  independent  authority  hnd  power.  It  was 
three  weeks  after  the  death  of  the  King;  before  he  arrived  at 
the  town  of  Vendome,  several  days'  /journey  from  Paris. 
There  he  was  met  by  his  brothers,  thee  Cardinal  of  Bourbon 
and  the  Prince  of  Conde,  and  his  cousins,  the  Duke  of 
Montpensier  and  the  Prince  de  la  Roche  sur  Yon.  The 
object  of  this  conference  of  all  the  m'^embers  of  the  House  of 
Bourbon  was  to  form  plans  for  dem^ianding  their  due  share 
in  the  government  and  the  lessenir^  ig  of  the  overwhelming 
power  of  the  Guise.  They  propos/.ed  to  demand  that  the 
Constable,  head  of  the  House  of  M^^ontmorency,  be  restored 
to  the  active  exercise  of  all  his  ^offices,  which  were  now 
managed  by  the  Duke  of  Guise.  ^  Irhe  Constable  was  repre- 
sented at  the  meeting  by  his  secr^etary,  and  his  nephew  of 
the  House  of  Chatillon,  the  Admir  "^al  of  France.  His  brother, 
d'Andelot,  Captain  General  of  t  „he  French  Infantry,  had 
akeady  consulted  with  the  you]  .  iger  Bourbons.  The  con- 
ference decided  to  begin  this  pi?  m  by  demanding  from  the 
Queen  Mother  and  the  King  t;  aat  the  private  seal  of  the 

*Hist.  attributed  to  Regnier  de  la  Ig  ?laiiche.    Cal.  Ven.  110,  121;  Letts. 
I,  125. 


144  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

King  should  be  put  in  the  hands  of  the  King  of  Navarre,  as 
long  as  His  Majesty  remained  so  young.  Catherine  heard 
of  this  plan  of  the  Bourbons  to  appeal  to  her  to  help  them 
weaken  the  power  of  the  Guise,  and  she  sent  for  the  Prince 
de  la  Roche  sur  Yon.  "In  gentle  language  she  complained 
to  him  of  his  wishing  to  turn  the  kingdom  upside  down  and 
rebel  with  the  others,  to  the  injury  of  the  King,  her  son, 
who  on  account  of  his  tender  age  deserves  support  and  not 
opposition  from  his  kinsfolk  of  the  blood  royal,  adding  that 
the  past  misfortunes  of  France  and  this  last  one  of  the 
King's  death  were  mOre  than  sufficient  without  now  adding 
a  civil  war  which  would  never  end,  and  with  many  tears, 
crying  almost  the  whole  time,  she  expostulated  thus  with 
the  Prince." 

Two  weeks  later  the  King  of  Navarre,  accompanied  by 
all  the  princes  of  the  blood,  arrived  at  Paris.  He  was  met 
by  the  King  with  great  ceremony  and  greeted  by  the  Duke 
of  Guise  and  the  Qardinal  of  Lorraine  with  the  utmost 
respect.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  Bourbons  soon 
persuaded  themselves,  or  else  were  persuaded  by  the  Queen 
Mother,  not  to  force  their  demand  for  a  share  in  the  govern- 
ment and  soon  after  the  coronation  of  the  King,  all  the 
members  of  the  familj\  withdrew,  on  various  pretexts,  from 
court.^  \ 

The  third  element  ^f  discontent  was  the  illegal  secret 
Reformed  churches,  upt)n  whom  the  hand  of  the  govern- 
ment was  laid  more  *'\ieavily  than  ever.  Eighty-eight 
heretics  had  been  burned  at  the  stake  during  the  twelve 
years'  reign  of  Henry  IT.  Two  hundred  perished  at  the 
stake  in  a  few  months  (of  the  rule  of  Francis  II.  As  it 
became  evident  that  this  repression  was  not  destroying  or 
even  checking  the  growth  of  the  illegal  churches,  the  King 
issued,  in  the  month  of  November,  three  edicts,  ordering 
the  destruction  of  any  house  in  which  an  illegal  assembly 
was  held,  the  execution  of  any  person  attending  one,  and 
a  free  pardon  and  reward  i'or  informers.    The  members  of 

*Cal.  Vcn.  115,  121;  Forbes  19i{. 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  145 

the  Reformed  church  thought  Catherme  not  unfriendly  to 
their  cause.  For  instance,  the  secretaries  of  the  English 
Embassy  wrote  to  Elizabeth  early  in  December:  "The 
two  queens  have  daily  a  sermon  made  before  them  in  the 
chapel  at  the  court  or  in  their  dining  chamber  by  a  friar, 
who  can  good  skill,  which  some  think  is  done  by  the  Car- 
dinal of  Lorraine's  means  to  keep  in  the  Queen  Mother, 
who  is  noted  rather  to  be  a  Protestant  than  otherwise." 
It  was  this  reputation  that  brought  her  the  appeal  to  which 
she  wrote  the  following  reply,  in  November,  1559 : 

"To  THE  Magistrates  of  the  City  of  Metz: 

"Gentlemen:  I  have  seen  the  letter  which  you  wrote  to  me 
the  fifth  of  this  month,  containing  the  request  which  you  make 
to  supersede  the  execution  of  the  letters  which  the  King,  my  son, 
has  written  to  you  in  the  matter  of  rehgion,  in  which  I  would 
gladly  have  employed  myself  .  .  .  except  for  the  fact  that  know- 
ing how  very  pernicious  and  dangerous  a  difference  of  religion 
is  in  a  city  ...  I  am  not  able  to  give  you  any  better  counsel  in 
this  matter  except  to  obey  the  letter  which  the  King,  my  said 
master  and  son,  has  written  to  you  on  the  subject,  as  a  thing 
which  belongs  to  the  honor  of  God  and  which  will  aid  in  the 
prosperity  and  repose  of  your  city."  ^ 

Whatever  inclination  in  favor  of  the  Reform  Catherine 
may  have  had  was  not  helped  by  a  letter  which  was  written 
to  her  about  this  time  in  favor  of  du  Bourg,  whose  trial  had 
been  dragging  along  ever  since  the  death  of  the  King;  con- 
stantly impeded  by  the  efforts  of  his  friends  and  by  his  own 
skill  as  a  lawyer.  It  said  that  they  had  been  trusting  to 
her  promise  to  end  the  process  against  du  Bourg,  but  it 
was  now  evident  that  his  enemies  intended  to  take  his  life. 
She  ought  to  be  assured  that  "God  would  not  leave  such 
an  iniquity  as  this  unpunished.  .  .  .  God  had  commenced 
by  the  punishment  of  the  late  King  .  .  .  and  the  witness 
and  the  testimony  of  His  judgment  would  again  be  so  mani- 
fest that  it  could  not  be  by  any  means  disguised  or  hidden." 
The  procedure  against  du  Bourg  was  so  strange  in  the 

*  Letts.  I,  Int.,  p.  61.  Conde  I,  6.  Forbes,  274.  Hist.  Ecc,  I,  241. 
Letts.  I,  128. 


146  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

eyes  of  everybody  that  if  anything  further  was  attempted 
against  him  and  the  other  Christians  (eighteen  heretics 
had  been  burnt  in  Paris  during  October)  there  would  be 
the  greatest  danger  of  trouble  and  revolution.  Not  that 
revolution  would  come  from  those  who  under  their  ministry 
had  embraced  the  Reformation  of  the  Gospel,  because  she 
could  expect  from  them  every  sort  of  obedience,  but  because 
there  were  a  great  number  of  others,  a  hundred-fold  as 
many,  who,  knowing  only  the  abuses  of  the  Pope,  and  not 
having  yet  submitted  themselves  to  ecclesiastical  discipline, 
could  not  suffer  persecution.  Of  this  fact  they  wished  to 
warn  her  in  order  that  if  any  mischief  came  she  could  not 
think  that  it  proceeded  from  them.  Catherine  was  not  at 
all  a  timid  woman,  although  some  superficial  observers  were 
sometimes  inclined  to  think  that  she  was.  This  letter 
enraged  rather  than  frightened  her  and  she  is  reported  to 
have  said:  "Well,  they  are  threatening  me,  thinking  to 
frighten  me,  but  they  haven't  yet  got  as  far  as  they  think." 
A  few  days  before  Christmas  du  Bourg  was  burned  in 
front  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  glorying  over  his  death  in  the 
cause  of  Christ.  This  severity,  however,  did  not  produce 
the  desired  effect.  The  Venetian  Ambassador  reports  in 
December:  "Religion  is  in  great  disorder  and  has  need  of 
more  than  ordinary  care  and  remedy,  as  from  all  quarters 
fresh  disturbances  are  heard  of  daily.  Although  in  Paris 
and  other  cities  not  a  week  passes  without  many  persons 
being  burned  alive,  and  a  yet  greater  number  being  im- 
prisoned, the  contagion  nevertheless  does  not  cease,  but 
spreads  more  and  more  daily."  Those  who  preferred  the 
new  religion  were  getting  very  unwilling  to  stand  quietly 
by  and  see  their  friends  led  to  the  slaughter.  Arrested 
heretics  on  their  way  to  trial  were  not  infrequently  stopped 
by  bands  of  armed  men  and  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
officers  of  the  law.  Near  the  end  of  December  a  sergeant 
of  the  official  charged  with  the  investigation  of  the  crime 
of  heresy  was  murdered  near  the  Castle  of  Chantilly,  where 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  147 

the  court  was,  and  the  letters  he  was  carrying  to  the  Car- 
dinal of  Lorraine  taken  from  the  body.^ 

For  a  long  time  it  had  been  evident  to  a  shrewd  outsider 
that  the  differences  of  opinion  about  religion  in  France 
and  the  quarrels  among  the  nobles  might  easily  combine 
to  produce  very  serious  trouble,  and  the  neighbors  of  France 
had  already  planned  to  get  their  advantage  out  of  this 
trouble  when  it  began.  The  day  after  the  death  of 
Henry  II  the  Duke  of  Alva  wrote  to  Philip  II  from  Paris 
that  one  of  his  objects  ought  to  be  to  favor  the  Catholics 
of  the  realm:  "thus  while  doing  service  to  God,  your  Maj- 
esty can  hold  such  a  party  in  this  realm  that,  whenever  it 
seems  best  to  you,  you  can  change  the  government."  The 
English  Ambassador  reports,  on  the  25th  of  August,  1559, 
that  he  had  met  the  King  of  Navarre  at  eleven  o'clock  at 
night  three  leagues  outside  of  Paris.  He  assured  him  that 
the  Queen  of  England  was  ready  to  join  herself  in  such 
alliance  and  friendship  with  him  that  the  true  reUgion  might 
be  properly  advanced,  and  its  enemies  could  not  gain  any 
advantage  neither  against  God  nor  against  His  cause,  nor 
against  His  ministers.  The  King  of  Navarre  said  there 
was  no  doubt  but  that  God  meant  to  serve  Himself  by  the 
Queen  of  England,  and  ...  he  rejoiced  that  he  had  so 
good  a  colleague  and  so  good  a  cause.  The  Ambassador, 
refusing  an  escort  for  his  dangerous  journey,  lest  the  secret 
of  this  interview  might  be  discovered,  then  returned  home. 
Each  of  these  monarchs  had  a  special  reason  of  state  for 
keeping  in  close  alliance  with  a  faction  in  France.  Philip 
II  feared  lest  the  heresy  spreading  in  the  Netherlands 
should  be  strengthened  by  contagion  from  France  and 
Elizabeth  was  alarmed  lest  the  Guise  should  use  the  power 
of  France  to  back  the  pretensions  of  their  niece,  the  young 
Queen,  who  served  dinner  to  the  English  Ambassador  on 
plate  engraved  with  the  quartered  arms  of  England,  Scot- 
land and  France.^ 

^  Barthelemy,  35;  de  la  Planche,  p.  30,  sup.  by  Languet,  qtd.  Letts,  I. 
Int.  69;  Cal.  Yen.,  135;  Conde  I,  319;  Forbes  I,  261. 
"  A.  N.  K.  1492  f.  49  Cal.  F. 


148  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Although  the  Constable  quietly  withdrew  from  court 
and  apparently  allowed  his  power  to  be  taken  from  him 
without  a  struggle,  it  is  evident  that  the  Guise  came 
dangerously  near  to  pushing  the  Montmorency  too  far. 
The  Constable  had  held  the  office  of  Grand  Master  of  France 
for  thirty-three  years,  but  the  Duke  of  Guise,  who  had 
inherited  from  his  father  the  position  of  Chief  Huntsman 
and  had  taken  away  from  the  Duke  of  Longueville  the 
position  of  Grand  Chamberlain,  wished  to  add  a  third  post 
to  his  honor  and  power,  so  he  now  took  the  office  of  Grand 
Master.  The  result  was  a  situation  which  compelled 
Catherine  to  assume  the  role  of  pacifier.  She  wrote  a  letter 
which  shows  great  fear  of  the  outbreak  of  civil  war  between 
the  factions  of  Guise  and  Montmorency: 

"To  Marshal  Montmorency,  My  Cousin: 

"Your  wife  being  on  her  way  home,  entirely  instructed  in 
regard  to  the  will  of  the  King,  my  son,  I  want  to  take  this 
occasion  to  write  this  word  in  addition  to  what  I  have  told  your 
wife  to  tell  you  from  me;  .  .  .  that  you  ought  to  carry  out  the 
will  of  the  King  on  this  occasion.  .  .  .  Assuring  myself  that  if 
you  will  do  what  is  in  your  power,  the  good  which  we  expect 
from  this  arrangement  will  result.  I  beg  you,  do  this  great 
service  to  yourself  and  to  all  of  us,  and  think  that  you  are 
doing  it  for  the  King,  your  good  master,  who  is  dead,  my  hus- 
band, and  for  your  country.  It  is  his  son,  who  is  his  true 
image  in  body,  in  spirit  and  in  goodness.  You  will  never  be 
deceived  in  such  an  action  and  so  much  loved  and  with  so  much 
occasion,  having  done  him  so  great  a  service,  that  it  is  not 
possible  to  fear  that  you  will  ever  lose  his  good  graces,  besides 
the  fact  that,  in  addition,  it  is  his  natural  disposition  to  love  you. 
If  you  have  any  trust  in  me,  as  one  who  has  always  shown  to 
you  and  to  your  house  my  good  will,  believe  me  this  time,  and 
if  you  are  deceived  in  it,  keep  this  letter  in  order  to  denounce 
me  as  the  most  unhappy  and  miserable,  I  will  not  say  Queen 
or  Princess,  but  creature,  whom  God  has  ever  created,  and  give 
yourself  and  all  your  house  that  contentment  of  having  been 
the  cause  of  the  restoration  of  this  poor  kingdom,  and  leave  this 
beautiful  memory  of  yourself  to  posterity,  and  not  the  memory 
of  having  helped  to  ruin  it.  I  pray  God  to  give  you  the  grace 
to  resolve  so  wisely  that  the  King,  the  kingdom  and  all  its  sub- 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  149 

jects  will  be  under  obligations  to  you.    From  Blois,  the  Third 
of  January,  1560.    Your  good  cousin,  Cateeinb."^ 

Besides  the  threatening  protests  of  the  heretic  churches 
and  the  sporadic  resistance  of  those  who  favored  the  mar- 
tyrs,  there  were  other  and  even  more  dangerous  signs  of 
discontent.  At  the  end  of  October  there  had  appeared  a 
pamphlet  making  a  very  serious  attack  upon  the  govern- 
ment as  it  was  established  in  the  Queen  Mother  with  the 
advice  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  Duke  of  Guise. 
It  said  that  such  an  arrangement  was  contrary  to  the 
ancient  customs  and  laws  of  France  which  excluded  women 
from  the  government  and  put  the  regency  for  a  minor  King 
in  the  hands  of  the  princes  of  the  blood  royal,  bitterly  at- 
tacked the  Guise  and  demanded  the  assembly  of  the  Estates 
General.^ 

Protests  and  attacks  upon  the  house  of  Guise  less 
learned  and  more  popular  followed  in  ever  increasing  num- 
ber. One  quite  widely  circulated  seems  to  be  a  doggerel 
poem  in  praise  of  the  two  brothers,  but  if  cut  perpendicu- 
larly at  right  angles  not  far  from  the  beginning  of  the  lines, 
it  produces  a  savage  attack  upon  them.  It  cannot  be  trans- 
lated, but  it  may  be  reproduced  with  a  reasonable  degree 
of  exactness,  as  follows : 

"Oh  lucky  chance,  nay,  gift  of  God's  own  hand 
Which  gives  to  France,  our  well-loved  native  land, 

Cardinal  Lorraine,  who  from  heresies'  maw 

The  source  of  pain  to  all  who  love  God's  law, 

The  deadly  blight  of  truth,  the  Church  would  save: 

Of  truth  and  right  the  hope,  though  Satan  rave 

With  crafty  might.  Firm,  just  and  brave, 

His  brother  Guise,  with  loyal,  righteous  hand. 

Longs  to  seize  whoe'er  resists  the  King,  and 

Everything  in  sight  from  stain  of  crime  would  lave. 

Or  foul  or  fair,  they  miss  no  plot  though  deep. 

*Decrue  (2),  p.  264,  Forbes  I,  274,  Letts.  I,  130. 
•De  Thou,  n,  693;  La  Place,  42. 


150  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

By  night  or  day,  from  their  vigilant  eye 

Nothing  gets  away.  The  craftiest  hide  no  lie 

From  this  wise  pair.  These  guardians  never  sleep. 

They  never  spare  themselves,  from  harm  to  keep 

The  smallest  thing  when  traitors  rouse  vile  strife 

To  gain  their  hope.  And  France  with  truth  can  say : 

One  to  be  Pcpe  the  Crown  would  not  betray, 

The  other  the  King  would  serve  with  his  own  life." 

In  addition  to  all  these  general  hatreds,  the  Guise  had 
drawn  upon  themselves  the  hatred  of  a  class  small  but 
very  dangerous — the  professional  soldiers  or  captains  of 
the  regular  regiments  of  the  army.  They  had  been  dis- 
missed without  a  settlement  after  the  Peace  of  Cateau- 
Cambresis  and  had  assembled  at  court  to  try  to  collect 
their  back  pay.  They  had  been  summarily  sent  away  by 
the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  many  of  them  left  swearing 
vengeance.^ 

These  men,  together  with  some  of  the  nobility,  of  good 
lineage,  though  not  of  the  highest  rank,  organized  a  wide- 
spread conspiracy,  which  was  given  final  form  in  a  meeting 
held  in  the  city  of  Nantes  on  the  first  of  February,  1560. 
The  active  leader  was  a  certain  nobleman  of  ancient  line- 
age, the  Seigneur  de  la  Renaudie,  who,  after  losing  a 
process  at  law  with  the  chief  clerk  of  the  Parlement  of 
Paris,  was  condemned  to  prison  for  having  produced  in  the 
process  forged  documents:  "a  thing,"  says  the  contem- 
porary historian  de  Thou,  "which  happens  often  enough 
in  this  sort  of  affair."  He  escaped  from  prison  by  the  help 
of  the  Duke  of  Guise,  then  the  Comte  de  Joinville,  and  fled 
to  Geneva,  where  he  married  a  French  lady.  During  his 
banishment,  his  brother-in-law,  who  had  been  sent  by  the 
King  of  Navarre  as  an  emissary  to  the  Protestant  centers 
of  Germany,  had  been  secretly  hung  after  torture  in  the 
garret  of  the  Chateau  of  Vincennes,  and  "buried  in  the  ditch 
in  a  place  overgrown  with  weeds."    La  Renaudie,  who  at- 

'Bouille  II,  28.    Brant.,  Cal.  Vcn.,  159;  Paillard  qtd.  Span.  Amb.  7. 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  151 

tributed  his  death  to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  Duke 
of  Guise,  had  vengeance  added  to  his  other  motives  for 
revolt.  Just  before  the  death  of  Henry  II  he  obtained 
letters  of  pardon  with  restoration  of  all  his  estates  and 
permission  to  live  according  to  his  conscience  providing  he 
did  not  preach.^ 

The  objects  of  the  conspiracy  La  Renaudie  organized 
were  first  and  above  all  to  remove  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine 
and  the  Duke  of  Guise  from  power  (probably  to  execute 
them  on  a  charge  of  treason) — to  put  the  control  of  the 
government  where  custom  required  that  it  should  be  during 
a  royal  minority,  in  the  hands  of  the  princes  of  the  blood, 
to  restore  the  Constable  to  the  exercise  of  all  his  offices — 
to  stop  the  persecution  of  the  Reformed  reUgion — and  to 
assemble  the  Estates  General.  It  was  not  backed  by  any 
of  the  great  nobles  except  perhaps,  secretly,  by  the  Prince 
of  Conde.  None  of  the  Montmorency  had  anything  to  do 
with  it.  It  had  only  the  partial  approval  of  the  Reformed 
church.  Calvin  himself  expressed  his  very  strong  dis- 
approval of  it.  "If,"  he  wrote,  "a  single  drop  of  blood  is 
shed,  rivers  of  it  will  flow.  ...  If  the  princes  of  the  blood 
should  demand  for  the  common  good  to  be  supported  in 
their  good  right,  and  if  the  court  of  Parlement,  in  the 
absence  of  the  Estates  General,  would  join  themselves  to 
them,  it  might  then  be  permissible  for  all  good  subjects 
to  maintain  them  in  arms."  Calvin  had  a  very  poor  opinion 
of  La  Renaudie,  and  when  the  latter  dared  to  assume  that 
he  had  his  sanction,  sent  for  him,  violently  reproached  him, 
and  finally  preached  a  sermon  against  him.  Nevertheless, 
a  number  of  those  who  entered  into  this  conspiracy  con- 
sidered themselves  to  be  fighting  in  the  cause  of  God. 

News  of  the  conspiracy  was  brought  to  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine  within  two  weeks  of  its  formation.  A  Protestant 
prince  who  was  his  friend  sent  him  word  from  Germany 
and  a  warning  came  to  him  from  the  Bishop  of  Arras  in  the 
Netherlands.    An  order  was  sent  in  the  middle  of  March 

*De  Thou  II,  754.    Read  103. 


152  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

to  the  French  Ambassador  in  Switzerland  to  shadow  La 
Renaudie  that  he  might  be  arrested  as  soon  as  he  crossed 
the  border  of  France.  But  he  had  then  been  in  France  at 
least  three  weeks.  A  full  suggestion  of  the  danger  in  which 
he  stood  was  brought  to  the  Cardinal  by  a  Protestant 
lawyer  from  Paris  with  whom  la  Renaudie  had  taken 
lodgings.  This  man,  moved  either  by  his  fears  or  his  con- 
science, put  the  government  on  its  guard.  By  the  fourth 
of  March,  1560,  the  news  that  something  dangerous  was 
afoot  became  generally  known  and  the  court  was  very 
uneasy.^ 

They  had  akeady  made  plans  to  spend  some  weeks  on  a 
hunting  trip  among  the  chateaux  of  the  Loire.  Afterward 
they  intended  to  make  the  journey  to  Toulouse  by  way  of 
Bordeaux  and  to  spend  the  following  winter  in  Provence 
and  Languedoc.  The  news  made  them  take  refuge  in  the 
defensible  chateau  of  Amboise.  Alarming  dispatches  con- 
tinued to  come  in.  For  instance,  on  the  thirteenth  of 
March  they  heard  that  one  of  the  royal  ofi&cers,  acting  on 
secret  information,  captured,  not  far  from  Tours,  two  bands 
of  armed  men  who  had  with  them  ten  trunks  filled  with 
pistols.  The  carrying  of  all  firearms  had  months  before 
been  strictly  prohibited  by  royal  proclamation,  which  also 
prohibited  the  wearing  of  long  mantles,  broad  sleeves  and 
big  boots  in  which  pistols  might  be  concealed.^ 

The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  very  much  worried  by  the 
situation,  began  to  appeal  to  the  influence  and  the  help 
of  Catherine.  This  change  of  attitude  is  very  evident  from 
the  correspondence  of  the  English  Ambassador.  Previous 
to  the  time  when  the  Guise  became  certain  of  this  con- 
spiracy, his  letters  contain  but  little  reference  to  Catherine, 
but  from  that  time  on  it  is  evident  that  attention  is  paid 
to  her  opinion  in  all  matters  of  state.  Her  advice  was  that 
the  younger  members  of  the  house  of  Montmorency, 
Admiral  Coligny  and  his  brother  d'Andelot,  Captain  Gen- 

*  Mignet.  Jour,  des  Savants,  July,  1857;  ib.  qtd.  A,  N.  K.  Cal.  Vcn.  163, 
Forbes  I,  355. 

'Cal.  Vcn.  156,  Paillard,  28,  qtd.  Arch.  Brussels. 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  153 

eral  of  the  French  Infantry,  should  be  called  to  court. 
Coligny  came  and  advised  the  Queen  to  issue  at  once  an 
edict  declaring  entire  liberty  of  conscience  until  time  could 
be  had  for  the  assembly  of  a  general  council  for  the  reform 
of  the  Church.  This  advice  was  accepted  not  only  by 
Catherine,  but  by  the  Guise.  An  edict  was  issued  in  which 
"the  King,  by  the  advice  of  his  honored  mother  and  his 
council  and  not  wishing  that  the  first  year  of  his  reign 
should  seem  to  posterity  bloody  and  full  of  the  death  of 
our  poor  subjects  however  much  they  may  have  deserved 
death,"  ordered  the  release  of  all  people  arrested  for  the 
sake  of  rehgion.  The  edict  excepted  from  pardon  all 
preachers  of  heresy  and  called  upon  all  loyal  subjects  of 
the  King  to  live  in  the  future  as  good  Catholics.^ 

This  of  course  was  not  what  Coligny  had  advised  and 
if  it  had  been,  the  conspirators  had  probably  gone  too  far 
now  to  be  willing  to  give  up  their  plans.  At  all  events, 
small  bodies  of  armed  men  continued  to  converge  from 
different  points  upon  the  town  and  castle  of  Amboise.  They 
were  cut  off  and  captured  by  the  princes,  nobles  and  gentle- 
men of  the  court  and,  on  the  nineteenth  of  March,  1560, 
la  Renaudie  himself  was  killed  in  a  skirmish  in  the  woods 
not  far  from  Amboise.  The  utmost  severity  was  used 
against  the  prisoners.  One  day,  for  instance,  four  men  were 
hanged  in  the  morning  and  in  the  evening  nine  more  were 
hanged,  some  from  the  gates,  some  upon  specially  erected 
gallows,  some  from  the  window-casings  of  the  chateau. 
Bunches  of  prisoners  were  tied  up  in  sacks  or  bound  to- 
gether to  long  poles  and  cast  into  the  river.  About  fifty 
were  drowned  in  this  way.  In  all  it  is  estimated  by  foreign 
observers  that  some  seventy-five  were  executed.  A  few 
noblemen  of  greater  importance  were  beheaded.^ 

Many  of  the  soldiers  when  asked  for  whom  they  were 
fighting  answered  that  they  were  the  soldiers  of  God  and 
most  of  the  captains  executed  died  "very  assuredly  and 

*De  Thou  II,  764;  Conde  I,  9. 

*  Forbes  I,  378;  Paillard  73,  qtd.  Span.  Amb. 


154  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

constantly  for  religion  in  singing  of  psalms."  When  one 
nobleman  by  the  name  of  Villemongey  mounted  the  scaf- 
fold he  stooped  to  dip  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  his  com- 
panions and  raising  them  to  Heaven  cried  out,  "Oh  God 
Most  Good  and  Most  Gracious,  behold  the  innocent  blood 
of  those  who  belong  to  You,  whose  death  You  will  not  leave 
unpunished."  The  horror  of  these  executions  was  increased 
by  the  fact  that  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  court 
rather  made  a  spectacle  of  them,  crowding  the  windows  of 
the  chateau  and  treating  the  matter  as  if  it  were  a  festival. 
To  this  general  cruel  attitude  of  the  court  two  exceptions 
have  been  recorded.  The  Duchess  of  Guise  wept  and 
refused  to  witness  the  executions  and  Catherine  de'  Medici 
saved  from  death  and  "caused  to  be  sent  home  a  great 
number."  ^ 

Although  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise  was  not  based  en- 
tirely upon  religion,  for  there  were  orthodox  Roman 
Catholics  among  the  prisoners,  the  attitude  of  those  who 
perished  for  it  put  them  in  the  light  of  martyrs  of  the 
Protestant  party  and  the  beginnings  of  that  terrible  hatred 
which  was  soon  to  envelop  all  France,  a  hatred  to  which 
both  sides  gave  the  sanction  of  religion,  can  be  seen  in  the 
following  incident.  The  young  Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  the 
future  historian,  then  a  lad  ten  years  old,  was  passing 
through  the  city  of  Amboise  with  his  father.  The  heads 
of  the  more  notable  conspirators  were  still  to  be  seen  fixed 
on  spikes  above  the  gates  where,  according  to  the  custom  of 
the  times,  they  had  been  placed  to  molder.  His  father  took 
him  by  the  hand  and  said,  "My  child,  you  must  not  spare 
your  head  after  mine.  Revenge  these  chieftains,  full  of 
honor,  whose  heads  you  have  just  seen.  If  you  spare  your- 
self in  this  matter  you  will  have  my  curse  upon  you."  ^ 

The  government  announced  that  those  summarily  exe- 
cuted were  traitors  who  had  planned  to  kill  the  King,  his 
mother,  his  brothers  and  all  having  the  management  of 

*  Forbes  I,  378,  de  Thou  II,  773,  La  Place  54,  Castelnau  18  (present). 
'Castelnau  19,  d'Aubigne  (2),  5. 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  155 

public  affairs  or  at  least  to  reduce  the  "authority  of  the 
King  to  the  mercy  of  the  subjects  who  should  give  the  law 
to  him  from  whom  they  ought  to  take  it."  Pierre  de  la 
Place,  who  had  been  appointed  by  Henry  II  the  first  presi- 
dent of  the  Cour  des  Aides  of  Paris,  after  pointing  out  that 
the  real  purpose  of  the  conspiracy  was  to  depose  the  Guise 
from  power  and  put  them  on  trial  and  that  all  the  con- 
spirators were  bound  by  solemn  oath  not  to  hurt  the  King 
or  any  of  the  princes  of  the  blood,  goes  on  to  say: 

"Among  the  conspirators  in  that  enterprise  there  were  a  num- 
ber who  held  the  doctrine  called  new  who  were  named  Huguenots. 
This  name  began  to  be  used  in  the  city  of  Tours,  a  few  days 
before  the  conspiracy,  because  of  the  gate  of  the  city  named 
after  King  Hugo,  near  which  those  of  the  said  religion  were  wont 
to  go  to  say  their  prayers;  taken  up  by  the  courtiers,  it  has 
become  universal.  The  said  religionists,  called  Huguenots,  said 
that  they  had  'joined  with  the  others  in  order  to  present  their 
confession  of  faith  to  get  mitigation  of  the  persecution  and  to 
demand  the  assembly  of  the  Estates  General." 

A  Catholic  living  in  Paris  wrote  in  his  diary  that  the 
insurrection  was  got  up  under  pretext  of  religion,  although 
the  common  report  was  that  there  was  in  it  more  "malcon- 
tentment  than  Huguenoterie."  ^ 

The  Guise  were  not  at  all  satisfied  that  they  had  gotten 
at  the  bottom  of  the  affair.  The  Venetian  Ambassador 
reports  that  some  of  the  prisoners  confessed  that  t^ey  were 
in  the  service  of  the  Prince  of  Conde  and  "it  has  been  told 
me  that  the  Cardinal  from  inability  to  restrain  himself 
dashed  his  cap  to  the  ground  in  a  rage,  stamping  upon  it 
several  times."  But  they  did  not  dare  attack  a  prince  of 
the  blood,  a  younger  brother  of  the  King  of  Navarre, 
without  strong  and  explicit  evidence.  Catherine  evidently 
regarded  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise  both  as  a  warning  and 
an  opportunity.  She  was  very  ill  at  ease  about  it  and 
wanted  to  know  whether  or  not  it  had  been  backed  by  the 
heretics  of  France  as  a  whole,  and  what  were  the  chances 

*  Conde  I,  349,  8.    La  Place,  PaUIard  qtd.  Span.  Amb.  44. 


156  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

that  the  adherents  of  the  new  secret  churches  might  get 
the  open  leadership  of  princes  of  the  blood  and  great  nobles 
for  a  general  rising.  They  had,  as  we  have  seen,  previously 
regarded  her  as  their  friend,  but  "seeing  that  they  no  longer 
addressed  themselves  to  her,"  she  sent  word  to  Chandieu, 
the  chief  minister  of  the  church  of  Paris,  offering  him  a  safe 
conduct  if  he  would  come  and  talk  with  her.  He  answered 
that  he  was  afraid  to  come,  but  finally  a  letter  was  written 
to  her  under  an  assumed  name  which  assured  her  that  the 
forces  which  had  approached  Amboise  had  not  been  in- 
tended to  act  against  her  or  the  King,  but  solely  to  get  the 
chance  of  presenting  to  the  King  a  petition  and  a  remon- 
strance concerning  the  state  of  the  kingdom:  which  related 
chiefly  to  the  power  of  the  Guise  and  the  persecution.  The 
means  of  escape  from  civil  war  were,  first,  to  appoint  a  royal 
council  according  to  the  ancient  laws  of  France  and  not 
according  to  the  desires  of  the  house  of  Guise.  Second, 
in  order  to  appease  the  troubles  of  religion,  to  call  a  holy 
and  free  council,  preferably  a  general  council  of  the  whole 
church :  if  not,  a  national  council,  and  that  meantime  men 
should  be  allowed  to  live  according  to  the  confession  of 
faith  held  in  the  Reformed  churches  of  France.^ 

Catherine  had  asked  that  the  letter  should  be  presented 
to  her  secretly,  so  that,  if  she  wished  to  adopt  any  of  its 
suggestions,  she  might  put  them  forward  as  coming  from 
herself  alone.  This  was  very  difificult,  but  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Camus  undertook  to  do  it.  After  watching  for 
some  time,  he  finally  found  what  he  thought  would  be  a 
good  chance  in  the  abbey  of  Beaulieu  just  outside  of  the 
town  of  Loches.  He  had  prepared  two  packets,  one,  which 
he  was  to  present  openly,  containing  papers  about  money 
which  Catherine  owed  to  his  late  father:  the  other  con- 
taining the  letter.  He  found  the  Queen  Mother  in  the 
courtyard  of  the  Abbey  and  he  slipped  the  second  packet 
into  her  hand  without  being  seen  by  the  young  queen,  who 
followed  her  as  if  watching  all  her  actions.    Catherine  went 

»B.  N.  qtd.  1723  f.  3;  de  la  Planche  152,  155,  157. 


UNDER  THE  THUMB  OF  THE  GUISE  157 

into  a  chamber  to  read  the  letter,  but  the  young  Queen 
came  in  suddenly  and  saw  it,  so  Catherine  joined  her  in 
reporting  it  to  the  Cardinal.  The  bearer  was  examined 
about  his  knowledge  of  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise  and 
particularly  about  "the  Prince,"  who  was,  according  to 
rumor,  the  "mute  chief."  They  threatened  to  put  him  to 
torture  and  death  if  he  didn't  tell  all  he  knew,  but  they 
couldn't  get  very  much  out  of  him,  although  he  was  re- 
peatedly interrogated  by  the  Queen  and  others. 

Being  anxious  to  find  out  the  truth,  not  only  in  regard 
to  the  discontent  of  the  persecuted  heretics,  but  also  about 
the  present  state  of  the  old  enmity  between  the  houses  of 
Guise  and  Montmorency,  Catherine  sent  also  for  a  devoted 
adherent  of  the  house  of  Montmorency,  a  gentleman  by 
the  name  of  Louis  Regnier  de  la  Planche,  and  asked  him 
what  were  the  real  reasons  for  these  troubles  and  what  he 
suggested  as  a  remedy  for  them.  His  written  account  of 
the  interview  is  given  in  summary  form  in  the  book  spoken 
of  on  page  142,  which  is  usually,  but  I  think  mistakenly, 
attributed  to  him.  He  was  brought  into  the  private  room 
of  the  Queen  Mother,  and  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was 
hidden  behind  the  tapestry  during  the  interview.  He  said 
that  those  who  were  called  Huguenots  were  made  up  of 
two  different  sorts  of  people,  the  one  were  moved  by  their 
conscience  and  the  other  by  consideration  for  the  condition 
of  the  state.  The  first  had  joined  la  Renaudie  because 
they  could  no  longer  bear  the  persecution,  the  others 
because  the  state  was  in  the  hands  of  aliens  while  the  princes 
of  the  blood  were  shut  out  from  the  government.  The 
first  might  be  appeased  by  an  assembly  called  on  the  pre- 
tense of  translating  the  Bible  at  which  the  differences 
between  the  two  parties  could  be  composed.  The  second 
could  only  be  satisfied  by  putting  the  government  in  the 
hands  of  the  princes  of  the  blood  by  means  of  the  assembly 
of  the  Estates  General.  He  went  on  to  denounce  the  house 
of  Guise  as  alien  usurpers  of  power.  The  Queen  Mother 
answered  that  she  would  be  delighted  if  the  King  of  Navarre 


158  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

and  the  Prince  of  Conde  would  stay  at  court  like  the  Prince 
of  Montpensier  and  the  Prince  de  la  Roche-Sur-Yon  and 
if  they  would  do  so  she  could  promise  them  favorable  and 
honorable  treatment.  He  was  summoned  to  a  second  inter- 
view in  the  afternoon,  threatened  a  little  bit  and  urged  to 
give  help  in  tracing  the  roots  of  the  late  rebellion.  He 
replied  by  a  new  attack  on  the  house  of  Guise  and  said 
that  he  was  neither  a  member  of  the  police  nor  a  spy  to 
track  pretended  rebels.  The  Queen  Mother,  in  apparent 
rage,  ordered  him  into  the  hands  of  her  guard,  but  he  was 
released  after  four  days'  imprisonment. 


CHAPTER  X 

Catherine's  policy  of  conciliation 

We  have  very  few  letters  of  Catherine's  dated  in  the 
spring  of  1560  and  it  is  probable  that  she  did  not  write  very- 
many.  Nevertheless,  we  see  plainly  enough  it  marks  a  great 
change  in  her  life:  the  beginning  of  large  influence  over 
public  affairs.  During  the  twenty-seven  years  after  she 
came  to  France  an  ignorant,  friendless  girl  of  fourteen  to 
be  married  to  a  young  prince  because  of  her  dot  and  the 
political  influence  of  her  great-uncle  the  Pope,  her  opinion 
about  political  matters  had  seldom  been  asked  and  never 
counted  for  very  much.  Now,  when  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine,  alarmed  by  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise,  asked  her 
to  leave  for  a  time  the  role  of  figurehead  and  help  him  if 
she  could  in  steering  the  ship  of  state,  she  was  not  content 
simply  to  aid  him  in  holding  his  course.  She  had  quietly 
made  her  own  investigation  of  the  facts  and  had  drawn  her 
own  conclusions.  She  was  seriously  impressed  by  the 
amount  of  discontent  of  various  kinds  which  lay  behind 
the  abortive  conspiracy  of  Amboise,  and  strongly  suspected 
that  the  Queen  of  England  had  some  secret  relation  to  those 
who  might  be  disposed  to  undertake  the  defense  of  the 
persecuted  heretics.^  She  was  not,  therefore,  willing  to 
measure  the  danger  of  the  situation  by  the  ease  with  which 
the  late  conspiracy  had  been  put  down.  Perhaps  also  she 
saw,  even  at  this  early  date,  that  political  forces  were  con- 
cerned, which,  if  shrewdly  handled,  might  assure  her  per- 
manent power  in  the  state. 

At  all  events  she  did  two  things.  She  had  already  advised 
the  Cardinal  to  call  Coligny  to  court  and  she  now  drew 
closer  to  this  old  adherent  of  her  husband's  faction  when 

*  Letts.  I.  136.  Cal.  Vcn.  201.    See  Note. 

159 


160  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

he  was  only  Dauphin,  whom  he  had  made  Admiral  of 
France  as  soon  as  he  became  King.  Coligny  was  the  brains 
of  the  Huguenot  party  and  with  her  incHnation  strength- 
ened by  his  advice  she  made  up  her  mind  that,  although 
Lorraine  had  called  on  her  only  for  help,  she  would  give  him 
direction  and  change  the  general  character  of  the  policy  of 
the  Crown  in  regard  to  "the  troubles  of  religion."  For 
a  time  she  succeeded  in  carrying  out  her  purpose,  and 
launched  a  definite  policy  of  conciliation. 

The  first  marked  sign  of  this  policy  had  been  the  edicts 
lightening  persecution  already  issued  by  Coligny's  advice. 
These,  by  the  testimony  of  Reformed  and  orthodox  alike, 
had  not  been  generally  obeyed  by  the  judges;  either  be- 
cause of  secret  orders  from  the  Cardinal  or  irrepressible  zeal 
for  orthodoxy  on  their  own  part.  The  need  of  a  policy  of 
conciliation  was  suggested  more  and  more  strongly  by  the 
news  which  came  from  many  parts  of  the  kingdom.  For 
example :  near  Bordeaux  mobs  were  breaking  the  images  of 
saints  in  the  churches:  in  Normandy  in  some  places, 
"Preaching  was  going  on  as  freely  as  in  Geneva:"  in  Pro- 
vence and  Dauphiny  great  assemblies  of  armed  men  wor- 
shipped in  open  defiance  of  the  law.  From  the  Bishop  of 
Montpellier  in  Languedoc  word  came  to  Catherine  towards 
the  end  of  1560  that  the  Pretended  Reformed  had  seized 
the  church  of  St.  Matthieu.  He  begged  her  to  check  "these 
monsters  who  want  to  extinguish  the  true  religion  and  bury 
in  one  great  tomb  all  its  ministers  in  order  to  put  in  their 
place  the  frogs  of  Geneva  and  the  snakes  of  Zurich."  In 
May,  therefore,  the  Crown  issued  the  Edict  of  Romorantin 
on  the  subject  of  religion  and  sedition,  which  transferred 
cases  of  heresy  from  the  King's  courts  to  the  bishops' 
courts,  and  provided  summary  justice  for  armed  assemblies 
contrary  to  law.  The  Edict  was  somewhat  ambiguous  and 
it  was  criticized  from  both  sides.  The  Spanish  Ambassador 
wrote:  "The  bishops  will  not  dare  to  punish  heretics  for 
fear  lest  they  rise  some  day  and  kill  them  all."    Others 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION       161 

thought  it  an  attempt  to  bring  the  Spanish  inquisition  into 
France.* 

Whatever  other  people  may  have  thought  about  it, 
Catherine  intended  to  use  the  Edict  to  lessen  persecution. 
Soon  after  it  was  issued,  there  came  into  the  service  of  the 
Crown  a  man  who  was  to  be  for  some  time  Catherine's 
chief  instrument  in  the  policy  of  conciliation  upon  which 
she  was  determined.  Michel  de  I'Hospital  was  now  fifty- 
three  years  old  and  had  already  made  a  name  for  himself. 
Well  known  as  a  Latin  poet,  he  had  addressed  his  most 
complimentary  poems  to  different  members  of  the  house 
of  Guise.  But  he  had  been  recommended  to  Catherine  not 
by  them,  but  by  her  sister-in-law,  the  Duchess  of  Savoy, 
in  whose  service  he  had  been  for  some  time.  When  the 
Chancellor  of  France,  Olivier,  died,  in  the  end  of  March, 
1560,  probably  both  the  Queen  Mother  and  the  all-powerful 
royal  minister  agreed  in  the  desire  to  appoint  I'Hospital 
to  succeed  him.  Thus  there  entered  into  the  service  of  the 
Crown  a  resolute  and  wise  man  who,  attacked  by  extremists 
of  both  sides,  has  nevertheless  been  praised  by  more  his- 
torians of  more  varied  types  than  any  character  of  those 
troublous  times,  because,  amid  the  hates  and  passions  of 
civil  war,  he  kept  "the  lilies  of  France  in  his  heart." 

One  striking  outcome  of  the  new  policy  was  a  letter  sent 
August  7,  1560,  signed  by  the  young  King.  The  Catholic 
cantons  of  the  Swiss  League  had  written  to  him  in  the 
end  of  May  expressing  their  dislike  of  the  sects  hostile  to 
the  Church  and  the  Christian  faith  which  were  established 
among  their  neighbors.  They  wrote  that  the  preachers  of 
these  sects  were  scattering  libels  everywhere,  and  the  Catho- 
lic cantons  were  afraid  of  being  compelled  to  change  their 
.eligion  by  force  of  arms.  They  were  therefore  considering 
striking  first.  The  King's  reply  pointed  out  that  the  evil 
they  complained  of  was  one  common  to  all  Christendom. 
There  was  no  prince,  republic  nor  community  which  was 

*Castelnau,  Bk.  I,  Ch.  11,  p.  22,  e.g.  B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  27  f.  227,  B.  N.  It. 
1721  f.  44,  A.  N.  K.  1493  f.  49,  Neg.  Fr.  II,  541,  562.  Zeller  385.  Isambert 
14.  p.  31.    A.  N.  K.  qtd.  De  Croze  I,  71. 


162  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

not  in  great  trouble  about  it  and  doubtful  of  the  remedy. 
"Because,  since  the  punishment  of  so  many  people  who  had 
been  put  to  death  in  order  to  strike  terror  into  those  who 
were  infected  by  these  sects  and  heresies  and  to  keep  the 
faithful  firm  in  their  religion  had  been  rather  a  means  of 
spreading  the  poison  throughout  the  world  than  of  bringing 
back  the  wanderers  from  the  way  of  truth,  we  must  confess" 
that  the  only  remedy  left  was  a  council  of  the  Church.  He 
was  working  now  with  the  Pope,  the  Emperor  and  the  King 
of  Spain  to  arrange  such  a  council.  Meantime  he  advises 
them  to  remember  that  union  was  the  strength  of  the  Swiss 
cantons  and  to  take  everything  patiently.  If,  after  they 
had  exhausted  all  means  of  peace,  their  neighbors  should 
ever  be  so  unreasonable  as  to  try  "to  force  them  to  receive 
the  law  from  them,  the  King  will  give  them  all  aid  and 
assistance."  This  letter  came  out  of  Catherine's  influence, 
perhaps  with  the  aid  of  L'Hospital,  for  the  ideas  and  even 
their  expression  sound  like  him.  In  July  when  urging  the 
Parlement  of  Paris  to  register  the  Edict  of  Romorantin,  he 
had  pointed  out  that,  "Although  Francis  I  and  Henry  II 
had  tried  to  weed  out  the  tares  from  among  the  wheat, 
now  the  tares  were  grown  so  thick  that  it  is  impossible 
to  pull  them  out  without  pulling  out  the  wheat  also,"  that 
just  as  physicians  abandon  medicines  which  do  not  cure 
the  disease,  so  the  state  must  give  up  the  attempt  to  cure 
its  troubles  by  persecution.  "The  more  so  since  these 
troubles  of  religion  are  not  confined  to  France  but  are  also 
found  among  our  neighbors  of  England,  Germany  and 
Scotland."  He  asked  for  summary  justice  for  the  rebellious, 
but  for  toleration  and  persuasion  for  heretics  until  a  general 
council  could  bring  peace  and  harmony  to  the  Church.^ 

These  moves  in  the  direction  of  conciliation  seem  to 
have  had  their  first  effect  upon  the  temper  of  the  Ambassa- 
dor of  Spain.  The  eighth  of  June  Catherine  wrote  to  the 
French  Ambassador  at  Madrid  complaining  bitterly  of  him 
and  saying  she  would  rejoice  at  his  recall.    Two  weeks 

*  Arch.  Lucerne,  7  Aug.  1560.    Conde  I,  543. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION       163 

before  the  King  had  written  a  similar  letter  and  the  Car- 
dinal of  Lorraine  accompanied  this  by  a  letter  complaining 
that  "the  representative  of  the  Spanish  King  had  not  been 
content  with  throwing  an  ordinance  signed  by  the  hand  of 
the  King  upon  the  ground  and  calling  a  royal  judgment  bad 
and  unhappy,  but  had  also  added  that  the  Guise  committed 
intolerable  injustice  with  a  thousand  other  similar  words 
extremely  insolent."  The  probability  is  that  this  bad 
temper  of  Chantonay  was  due  to  orders  from  home,  and 
the  probability  is  made  almost  certainty  by  a  dispatch  of 
the  Venetian  Ambassador  in  Spain  written  eight  years  later. 
The  Ambassador  predicts  that  Counts  Egmont  and  Horn, 
under  arrest  for  protests  against  matters  of  religion  and 
administration  in  the  Netherlands,  would  be  executed,  be- 
cause the  King  had  within  a  few  days  said  to  the  Nuncio 
about  the  affairs  of  France  that  "the  bad  situation  there 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  French  King  and  Queen  had 
not  listened  to  him  when,  more  than  eight  years  ago,  he 
tried  to  convince  them  that  they  ought  at  every  price 
to  seize  the  suspected  leaders  of  discontent  and  by  some 
means  put  them  to  death :  which  suggests  that  His  Majesty 
does  not  intend  to  fall  into  the  same  error  which  he  has 
condemned  in  others."  ^ 

While  Spain  objected  to  any  conciliation,  the  Reformed 
churches  and  the  Bourbon  Montmorency  nobility  thought 
the  form  of  conciliation  offered  by  Catherine's  new  policy, 
which  the  Guise  had  ostensibly  ^  accepted,  entirely  insuffi- 
cient. The  discontent  of  the  sympathizers  with  the  illegal 
Reformed  churches  continued  to  appear  sporadically  in 
armed  resistance  to  the  law. 

Paul  de  Mouvans,  a  nephew  of  the  Cardinal  of  Tournon, 
was  descended  from  the  younger  branch  of  a  noble  family 
of  Provence.  He  and  his  brother  Anthony  had  served  as 
officers  of  the  King  in  the  Italian  wars,  and  became  con- 
verted to  the  Reformed  doctrines.    Coming  home  at  the 

*  Letts.,  I,  138;  Neg.  Fr.  II,  384.    Gossart,  I,  92. 

'See  Lambert,  I,  115;  their  orders  to  hang  a  Huguenot  prisoner. 


164  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICI 

peace  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  the  two  brothers  had  brought 
a  minister  from  Geneva  and  held  services  in  a  house  of 
theirs  in  the  Uttle  city  of  Castellane,  near  Marseilles.  They 
made  converts  and,  in  February,  1559,  a  mob  attacked  the 
house.  The  Mouvans  and  their  adherents  defended  it, 
killed  three  of  the  assailants  and  rode  out  of  the  city, 
sword  in  hand.  Paul  went  to  Aix,  capital  of  Provence, 
to  demand  legal  redress;  for  he  claimed  that  nobles  had  the 
right  to  listen  to  discourses  on  religion  in  their  own  houses. 
Parlement  adjourned  the  case  and  Paul  went  to  Paris  to  get 
redress.  Meantime  the  people  of  Castellane  set  to  work  to 
plunder  and  burn  the  houses  of  the  Reformed  sympathizers 
in  the  city  and  its  neighborhood.  Anthony  raised  a  band  of 
partisans  and  executed  reprisals,  plundering  especially 
churches  and  monasteries.  Paul  came  back  with  orders 
from  the  Chancellor  transferring  the  suit  of  the  Mouvans 
to  the  neighboring  Parlement  of  Grenoble,  but  the  Parle- 
ment of  Aix  refused  to  register  the  writ  of  the  Chancellor 
and  put  a  price  on  the  heads  of  the  two  brothers.  The 
governor  of  the  province,  anxious  to  end  the  incipient  civil 
war,  proposed  arbitration  by  a  commission  of  three  nobles 
and  the  chief  magistrate  (viguier)  of  Castellane.  The 
Mouvans  agreed  and  Anthony,  on  his  way  to  the  place  of 
arbitration,  spent  the  night  at  the  little  city  of  Draguignan. 
When  his  presence  was  known  the  mob  rose,  killed  the 
magistrate  who  tried  to  protect  him,  dragged  him  into  the 
street  and  literally  tore  him  to  pieces,  carrying  his  heart 
through  the  streets  on  the  point  of  a  pike.  The  fragment 
of  his  mutilated  corpse  was  afterwards  dug  up  from  the 
grave  where  one  of  his  friends  who  rescued  it  from  the  sewer 
had  laid  it,  and  by  orders  of  the  prosecutor  of  the  Parlement, 
put  in  a  barrel  of  salt  and  sent  to  Aix  to  be  hung  on  the 
common  gallows.  This  was  a  true  prophecy  of  the  bestial 
ferocity  which  was  to  characterize,  especially  in  the  south, 
the  civil  wars  whose  shadow  was  alarming  Catherine.  Paul 
de  Mouvans  at  once  turned  from  the  law  courts  to  the 
sword  to  avenge  his  brother.    He  raised  a  force  of  two 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION       165 

thousand  men  and  kept  the  field,  feeding  them  largely  by 
exactions  from  the  Catholic  population  and  paying  them 
by  melting  down  the  gold  and  silver  vessels  of  the  churches. 
Catherine  ordered  the  Governor  to  conciliate  him  and,  on 
condition  of  amnesty  for  his  soldiers,  the  free  exercise  of 
religion  in  his  own  house  and  the  punishment  of  the  mur- 
derers of  his  brother,  Mouvans  agreed  to  disband  his  force. 
But  shortly  afterwards,  afraid  of  his  brother's  fate,  he 
mounted  and  followed  by  a  few  faithful  followers  rode  into 
Switzerland.^ 

In  Dauphiny  Charles,  Seigneur  de  Montbrun,  who  had 
also  won  distinction  in  the  wars  of  Italy  and  afterward 
become  converted  to  the  Reformed  religion,  was  summoned 
before  the  Pariement  of  Grenoble  under  charges  of  having 
compelled  the  inhabitants  of  his  estates  to  become  Hugue- 
nots and  of  having  supported  an  illegal  minister  at  a  neigh- 
boring town.  Fearing  for  his  life,  he  wrote  a  polite  letter 
denying  the  charges  and  refusing  to  come  to  the  Pariement. 
He  supported  his  refusal  by  the  edict  suspending  all  action 
on  account  of  religion.  The  Pariement  then  sent  the  pre- 
vost  des  marechaux  to  bring  him  dead  or  alive.  Montbrun 
met  him  on  the  road  and  after  a  stormy  interview,  knocked 
him  from  his  horse  and  carried  him  off  a  prisoner.  He 
then  raised  a  force  of  picked  men  and  invaded  the  Comtat 
de  Venaissin.  This  was  territory  on  the  borders  of  Dau- 
phiny which  belonged  to  the  Pope  and  was  ruled  by  a 
Legate.  A  considerable  number  of  the  inhabitants  had 
become  Protestants  and  the  object  of  Montbrun's  invasion 
was  to  defend  them  against  a  very  severe  persecution.^ 

In  addition  to  these  open  revolts  word  came  from 
Gascony  that  many  nobles  had  sold  their  estates  and 
gathered  themselves  together  for  some  purpose  unknown.^ 

The  Bourbon-Montmorency  faction  of  the  nobles  showed 
its  opposition  not  with  the  sword,  but  with   the  pen. 

*  Lambert,  I,  86-98. 
*Amaud   (1). 
•Cal.  Vcn.,  221. 


166  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Numbers  of  pamphlets  and  placards  violently  attacking  the 
administration  continued  to  appear.  One  of  the  most 
characteristic  productions  of  this  sort  was  entitled,  "A 
Response  to  all  the  Calumnies  Heretofore  Offered  Against 
the  Nobility  of  France  Which  Has  Set  Itself  Against  the 
Tyranny  of  the  House  of  Guise."  It  is  a  careful  argument 
on  the  ground  of  constitutional  precedent  that  the  house 
of  Guise  had  no  right  to  the  management  of  state  affairs 
during  the  youth  of  the  King,  because  that  legally  belonged 
to  the  princes  of  the  blood.  Even  if  this  were  not  true, 
there  were  three  good  reasons  why  the  house  of  Guise 
could  not  rightfully  have  the  management  of  the  realm: 
First,  they  were  foreign  and  not  French  princes.  Second, 
they  pretended  to  have  a  claim  to  the  throne  through  their 
descent  from  Hugh  Capet.  Third,  they  had  brought  ter- 
rible losses  upon  the  realm  by  their  past  management. 
Before  the  death  of  the  late  King  they  had  stripped  France 
of  troops  to  make  themselves  great  in  Italy,  with  disastrous 
results  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of  everybody.  Since  the 
death  of  the  late  King  they  had  rendered  Scotland  useless 
to  the  Crown,  seized  all  the  money  of  France,  defaulting 
even  on  the  interest  of  the  King's  debts,  and  withholding 
the  pay  of  the  army,  while  at  the  same  time  burdening  the 
poor  people  with  enormous  taxes.  They  had  overthrown 
the  authority  of  the  courts  of  Parlement ;  especially  by  the 
last  edict,  by  which  the  jurisdiction  over  cases  of  religion 
was  taken  away  from  these  courts  and  given  to  the  ecclesi- 
astical courts  of  which  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was  the 
leader  in  this  kingdom.  In  short,  the  bad  administration  of 
the  Guise  had  "led  wise  men  to  think  of  the  old  proverb 
that  when  those  of  the  house  of  Guise  shall  have  sheared 
the  King  they  will  take  even  his  skin."  ^ 

The  appearance  of  this  protest  against  the  rule  of  the 
Guise  was  doubly  ominous  of  danger  to  the  peace  of  France. 
In  the  first  place,  Catherine's  suspicion  that  those  who 
attacked  the  rule  of  the  Guise  were  supported  by  the  Queen 

»Conde. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION       167 

of  England  was  made  certainty  by  a  proclamation  Elizabeth 
issued  after  Francis  and  Mary  had  joined  the  arms  of 
England  to  those  of  Scotland  and  France.  Elizabeth  said 
she  would  keep  peace  with  France  and  Scotland  because 
"these  insolent  attempts  are  but  the  abuse  of  the  House  of 
Guise — who  have  the  chief  governance  of  the  crown  of 
France  during  the  minority  of  the  King  and  Queen."  ^ 

In  the  second  place,  this  appeal  to  constitutional  law 
against  the  dominance  of  the  House  of  Guise  was  ominous 
because  it  showed  the  way  of  union  between  the  chief 
forces  of  discontent:  the  Bourbon-Montmorency  faction  of 
the  nobility  and  the  Reformed  churches.  Calvin  had  dis- 
approved of  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise  because  he  distrusted 
la  Renaudie  and  feared  anarchy,  but  his  early  humanistic 
training  had  given  him  the  dislike  of  "tyranny"  in  the 
classic  sense  of  unlawful  power  which  so  many  of  the 
humanists  learned  from  Cicero.  He  finally  formed  a  theory 
of  constitutional  resistance:  "Though  the  correcting  of 
unbridled  governments  be  the  revengement  of  the  Lord,  let 
us  not  by  and  by  think  that  it  is  committed  to  us,  to  whom 
there  is  given  no  other  commandment  but  to  obey  and 
suffer.  I  speak  only  of  private  men.  But  if  there  be  at 
this  time  any  magistrates  for  the  behalf  of  the  people  such 
as  the  ephori  of  Lacedemonia  or  the  tribunes  of  the  people 
at  Rome,  I  do  not  forbid  them,  according  to  their  office,  to 
withstand  the  outraging  licentiousness  of  kings.  Nay,  I 
affirm  that  if  they  wink  at  a  king's  treading  down  of  the 
poor  commonalty,  it  is  a  wicked  breach  of  faith,  because 
they  deceitfully  betray  the  liberty  of  the  people  whereof 
they  know  themselves  to  be  appointed  protectors  by  the 
ordinance  of  God."  ^ 

One  of  these  attacks  upon  the  Guise  which  appeared 
in  the  late  spring  or  early  summer  is  as  striking  an  example 
as  can  be  found  in  history  of  the  pitch  of  intensity  to  which 
religious  feelings,  the  desire  for  vengeance  and  political 

*  Letts.  I,  136,  Cal.  F.  1560,  p.  472. 
'Institutes,  IV,  XX,  31. 


168  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

passion  can  raise  hatred.  It  is  a  short  pamphlet  written 
in  nervous  French  which  reproduces  with  great  force  the 
method  and  feeling  of  Cicero's  orations  against  Catiline. 
It  is  meant  for  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  and  is  headed, 
"A  Letter  Sent  to  the  Tiger  of  France,"  and  it  begins,  "Mad 
tiger,  venomous  viper,  sepulchre  of  abomination,  receptacle 
of  unhappiness,  how  long  wilt  thou  abuse  the  youth  of  our 
King?  Wilt  thou  never  put  a  term  to  thy  unmeasured 
ambition,  to  thy  falsehoods,  to  thy  stealings?  Dost  thou 
think  that  anyone  is  ignorant  of  thy  detestable  design  and 
fails  to  read  in  thy  face  the  curse  of  our  times,  the  ruin  of 
this  kingdom  and  the  death  of  our  King?  "  ^ 

In  addition  to  this  serious  discontent  from  two  sources, 
showing  itself  by  sword  and  by  pen,  the  finances  of  the 
kingdom  were  in  a  very  grave  condition.  During  the  reign 
of  Henry  II,  owing  to  war,  to  excessive  generosity  and  cor- 
rupt administration,  the  debt  of  France  had  rolled  up. 
It  now  amounted  to  over  forty  millions  of  francs,  which 
was  about  three  times  the  annual  income  of  the  state. 
This  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  income  of  the  Crown  had 
been  doubled  and  the  direct  tax  increased  about  fifty  per 
cent.  The  need  of  cash  was  so  great  that  many  salaries 
were  unpaid  and  the  treasury  had  been  obliged  to  declare 
a  sort  of  half-bankruptcy.  An  Italian  banker  who  was  a 
large  creditor  of  the  Crown,  protesting  against  this  partial 
repudiation,  said,  in  the  presence  of  the  royal  council,  that 
"even  in  Turkey  they  didn't  do  the  things  which  were  done 
in  France."  But  his  indignation  brought  him  nothing  but 
a  threat  of  prison.^ 

An  acute  consciousness  of  all  these  causes  of  trouble 
was  kept  vivid  in  Catherine's  mind  in  two  ways.  Direct 
appeal  was  made  to  her.  While  she  was  at  supper  in  the 
chateau  of  Fontainebleau  a  note  was  thrown  in  through  the 
open  window  which  said  that  if  she  did  not  quickly  set 
free  some  Calvinist  preachers  who  were  imprisoned  in  the 

*  Read. 

'Clamageran.    B.  N.  It.  1721,  f.  30;  Val.  Vcn.,  222. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION       169 

city  of  Tours,  "she  would  find  herself  the  most  unhappy 
princess  alive."  Of  the  other  sort  of  notice,  the  following 
which  has  survived  without  address,  date  or  signature,  will 
serve  as  a  specimen :  "A  few  days  ago  Maligny  and  Captain 
Bobous,  a  Provengal,  passed  through  Bergerac  accompanied 
by  twenty-five  men  well  mounted,  armed  with  cutlasses  and 
carrying  pistols  at  their  saddle-bows,  and  the  man  who  sent 
me  this  word  informs  me  that  they  are  on  the  road  to 
Normandy,  although  it  is  possible  that  they  might  take 
some  other  road.  I  wanted  to  send  you  word  of  this,  but  I 
beg  of  you  that,  having  read  this  letter,  you  would  be 
pleased  to  tear  it  up  and  to  throw  the  pieces  in  the  fire." 
These  things  had  determined  Catherine  to  assert  her 
authority  and  to  move  strongly  in  the  direction  of  a  policy 
of  conciliation.  Doubtless  by  the  advice  of  Michel  de 
THospital,  there  was  issued  in  July,  1560,  the  first  of  that 
splendid  series  of  royal  edicts  by  which  during  the  eight 
years  of  his  power  he  endeavored  to  reform  the  administra- 
tion of  the  French  state.  Alluding  to  the  intolerable  bur- 
den of  taxation  caused  by  the  debts  of  the  late  King,  the 
edict  forbade  a  practice  which  had  become  customary  of 
levying  taxes  in  the  various  provinces  in  order  to  gratify 
governors  or  other  royal  officials  in  those  provinces  under 
the  name  of  gifts.  The  penalty  imposed  is  eight  times  the 
sum  of  the  "gift,"  divided  between  the  people  upon  whom 
the  tax  was  levied  and  the  royal  treasury.^ 

Catherine  had  already  sent  Admiral  Coligny  into  Nor- 
mandy, where  the  Reformed  were  very  strong,  in  order  to 
find  out  what  would  remove  their  discontent.  Following 
the  advice  of  both  the  Admiral  and  the  Chancellor,  she  now 
determined  to  call  at  Fontainebleau  an  Assembly  of  Nota- 
bles to  take  council  on  the  state  of  the  kingdom.  There 
were  summoned  to  it  the  chief  nobles,  all  governors  of 
provinces  and  aU  who  had  the  right  to  enter  the  privy 
council.^ 

'  B.  N.  It.  1721,  f.  146,  C.  C.  C.  27,  f.  139;  Letts.,  I,  153. 
»  B.  N.  It.,  1721,  f.  50. 


170  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Catherine  was  particularly  anxious  that  the  heads  of 
the  great  houses  of  Bourbon  and  Montmorency  should  be 
present  at  this  meeting  and  she  dictated  the  following  letter 
to  the  King  of  Navarre: 

"My  brother,  I  have  suffered  so  much  sorrow  during  the  past 
year  and  I  have  seen  this  poor  realm  afflicted  by  so  many 
calamities,  one  on  top  of  the  other,  that  I  haven't  had  much 
leisure  up  to  now  but  .  .  .  seeing  all  the  disturbances  which 
have  for  some  months  been  going  on  in  this  kingdom,  it  has 
seemed  to  me,  and  to  all  the  good  servants  of  the  King,  that  no 
better  means  can  be  found  in  the  present  necessity  than  to 
assemble  all  those  who  have  the  honor  of  belonging  to  his 
council;  in  order  that  in  so  large  and  good  a  company  it  may 
be  possible  to  find  the  remedy  of  the  present  evil  situation  and 
to  appease  all  the  troubles  which  we  see  now  in  this  realm. 
Therefore,  my  brother,  because  you  have  the  honor  to  be  so  close 
to  the  King,  my  son,  and  because  you  are  among  the  leading 
personages  of  his  council,  I  desire  that  the  beginning  should  be 
made  with  you,  assuring  myself  that,  because  you  are  the  first 
who  belongs  to  him  in  blood,  you  will  be  also  the  first  in  the 
devotion  you  have  always  shown  towards  the  late  King,  my  lord, 
and  towards  him.  I  pray  you,  therefore,  to  come  to  him  imme- 
diately, and  you  can  assure  yourself,  my  brother,  that  he  and  I 
will  take  every  pains  to  give  you  so  good  a  welcome  that,.  .  . 
you  will  have  no  occasion  to  be  sorry  that  you  have  come  into 
a  company  where  you  will  be  so  much  loved  and  esteemed.  .  .  . 

Your  good  sister.  Catering." 

She  wrote  also  to  the  Constable  urging  him  to  obey  the 
summons  of  the  King  and  to  his  wife  to  use  her  influence 
to  get  her  husband  to  come.  In  spite  of  Catherine's  letter, 
backed  by  most  flattering  letters  from  the  King,  the  King 
of  Navarre  would  not  come  to  the  Assembly,  but  the  Con- 
stable arrived  about  the  middle  of  August  accompanied  by 
his  children,  his  nephews  and  a  great  company  of  his 
friends,  amounting  in  all  to  six  hundred  horse.^ 

The  Assembly  met  in  great  state.  There  were  present 
the  King  and  Queen,  the  Queen  Mother  and  the  brothers 
of  the  King,  the  Cardinals  of  Bourbon  and  Lorraine,  the 

*  Letts.  144.  146;  B.  N.  Nouvs.  Acqs.  6003,  f.  3,  10,  34,  It.  1721,  f.  56. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION       171 

Dukes  of  Guise  and  Aumale,  the  Constable,  the  Chancellor, 
the  Admiral  and  the  Marshals  St.  Andre  and  Brissac,  the 
Bishops  of  Orleans,  Vienne  and  Valence,  all  the  chevaliers 
of  the  order  of  St.  Michel  and  the  royal  secretaries. 
Catherine  opened  the  meeting  by  begging  the  Assembly  to 
counsel  the  King,  her  son,  in  such  a  way  that  "his  sceptre 
may  be  preserved,  his  subjects  eased  and  the  malcontents 
contented,  if  it  be  possible,"  and  it  was  a  quiet  but  complete 
triumph  for  her  new  policy  of  conciliation. 

The  Duke  of  Guise  began  the  proceedings  by  making  a 
report  as  Lieutenant  General  of  France.    This  was  followed 
by  a  report  from  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  on  the  finances. 
There  was  no  attempt  to  attack  the  two  brothers  in  the 
tone  of  any  of  the  twenty-two  libels  which  the  Cardinal 
said  he  now  had  upon  his  table,  but  the  dislike  of  perse- 
cution of  the  Reformed  churches  and  the  desire  to  employ 
traditionary  methods  in  the  conduct  of  the  government, 
prevailed  so  strongly  that  the  Cardinal  and  the  Duke  were 
compelled  to  give  way  and  swim  with  the  tide.    Admiral 
Coligny  presented  two  petitions,  one  to  the  King  and  the 
other  to  the  Queen  Mother,  which  he  said  would  have  been 
signed,  if  he  had  wished  it,  by  fifty  thousand  adherents 
of  the  Reformed  churches  in  Normandy.    The  petitioners 
reminded  the  King  that  the  office  of  King  was  ordained  by 
God  in  order  that  "following  the  example  of  good  kings 
like  David,  Hezekiah  and  Josiah,  You  might  restore  in  your 
kingdom  the  true  and  right  service  of  God  and  exterminate 
all  abuses."    They  asked  for  temples  in  each  city  and  vil- 
lage for  their  worship  and  professed  their  willingness  to 
obey  all  laws  and  pay  all  taxes  even  greater  than  those 
which  were  now  levied.    They  called  upon  the  Queen 
Mother  to  follow  the  example  of  Esther;  to  have  pity  upon 
the  chosen  people  and  to  deliver  them.     "Therefore,  sov- 
ereign princess,  we  supplicate  you,  by  the  affection  which 
you  owe  to  Jesus  Christ,  to  establish  His  true  service  and 
to  drive  out  all  others."  ^ 

'  Conde,  II,  645. 


172  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

The  Admiral,  in  commenting  upon  these  petitions,  de- 
manded the  reform  of  the  abuses  of  the  Church  and  the 
assembly  of  the  Estates  General.  The  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine advised  the  Queen  not  to  grant  the  temples  for  that 
would  be  to  approve  of  idolatry  and  to  merit  damnation. 
He  said,  however,  that  as  far  as  concerned  those  who  went 
without  arms  to  heretic  services,  or  stayed  away  from  mass, 
since  the  penalties  which  had  been  inflicted  upon  them  had 
up  to  the  present  moment  done  no  good,  the  King  ought 
to  prohibit  their  being  touched  any  more  by  the  hand  of 
justice.  He  was  even  very  sorry  that  such  severe  punish- 
ment had  been  inflicted  before  and  he  would  that  his  life 
or  his  death  could  be  of  some  use  to  such  poor  deluded 
people.  He  felt  that  hereafter  the  bishops  ought  to  try 
to  correct  their  errors  in  evangelic  ways.  "Correct  thy 
brother  between  him  and  thee."  He  believed  that  the 
Estates  General  ought  to  be  called  and  that  the  reports 
of  the  bailiffs  and  seneschals  ought  to  be  assembled  in 
order  to  see  whether  it  would  be  better  to  hold  a  national 
or  a  universal  council  of  the  Church.  When  all  had  ex- 
pressed their  opinion  in  turn,  it  was  unanimously  agreed 
to  call  the  Estates  General  for  the  10th  of  December  and 
afterwards,  if  the  Pope  and  the  other  rulers  would  not  agree 
to  a  universal  council,  to  call  a  national  council  of  the 
GalUcan  Church.  The  decision  of  the  King  to  call  these 
two  assemblies  was  announced  to  the  kingdom  in  a  royal 
edict  issued  on  the  31st  of  August,  1560.^ 

But  although  Catherine,  by  adroitly  bringing  into  play 
the  anti-Guise  elements  in  the  state,  could  launch  her  new 
policy  of  conciliation  and  an  appeal  to  the  nation,  she  could 
not  hold  control  of  the  situation.  A  mistake  of  some  of 
their  antagonists  suddenly  made  the  Guise  again  masters 
of  France. 

Catherine's  first  impression  of  this  new  event  so  dis- 
turbing to  her  plans,  has  survived  in  a  letter,  written  to 
her  daughter,  the  Queen  of  Spain,  where  the  obscurity 

*  Recueil,  11.    Neg.  Fr.  II,  p.  486. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION        173 

common  to  all  the  letters  written  by  her  own  hand  is  in- 
creased by  the  agitation  of  her  mind : 

"Madame,  my  daughter,  you  will  see  the  reason  for  this  dis- 
patch by  what  the  Ambassador  will  tell  you  about  it,  which 
will  be  the  reason  why  I  do  not  tell  it  over  again.  I  will  only 
say  that  God  has  helped  us  well,  and  I  will  put  things  again  in 
such  a  state,  if  it  pleases  Him  to  aid  us,  that  we  could  not  have 
a  greater  occasion  to  thank  and  serve  Him  as  we  ought  according 
to  the  grace  which  He  has  shown  towards  us  of  having  us 
discover  everything.  For  it  seems  that  it  is  really  a  miracle,  the 
way  in  which  we  found  out  everything  and  He  is  certainly  show- 
ing us  how  much  He  loves  us  and  all  this  kingdom,  which  ought 
to  make  us  think  that,  since  He  wishes  to  maintain  our  house, 
He  will  maintain  you  also  in  your  contentment  and  grandeur — 
but  that  you  should  be  grateful  to  Him  and  serve  Him  as  you 
ought,  which  is  what  I  pray  you  never  to  forget."  ^ 

Catherine  was  agitated  because  a  new  conspiracy  had 
been  discovered.  Just  at  the  close  of  the  assembly  of  the 
Notables  in  Fontainebleau,  a  gentleman  by  the  name  of 
de  la  Sague  was  sent  by  the  Prince  of  Conde  to  court,  partly 
to  bring  him  back  some  money  from  his  wife,  partly  to 
gather  news.  De  la  Sague  talked  indiscreetly  to  one  of 
the  courtiers  whom  he  supposed  to  be  a  servitor  of  the 
King  of  Navarre,  and  the  conversation  was  reported  to 
Marshal  Brissac.  The  Marshal  advised  him  to  go  and  tell 
the  Duke  of  Guise.  Guise  watched  de  la  Sague  and  when  he 
started  home,  arrested  him  with  a  whole  valise  filled  with 
letters  addressed  to  the  Prince  of  Conde.  Here  they  found 
confirmation  of  the  vague  reports  which  had  been  coming 
to  them  for  months  of  a  conspiracy  far  more  dangerous  than 
that  of  Amboise.  The  conspirators  were  to  begin  by  seizing 
the  cities  of  Poitiers,  Tours,  Orleans  and  Lyons  and  then 
to  advance  upon  the  court  with  forces  gathered  from  all 
the  provinces  of  the  southern  part  of  the  kingdom,  to  put 
the  princes  of  the  blood  at  the  head  of  the  government 
and  to  arrest  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  Duke  of 
Guise  for  treason.    When  the  Cardinal  had  read  the  letters 

'Letts.  I,  564. 


174  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

in  de  la  Sague's  valise,  he  went  at  once,  although  it  was  late 
at  night,  to  the  Queen  Mother.  She  went  to  the  King's 
room  and  summoned  the  Constable  and  the  Chancellor, 
who  had  long  been  in  bed.  They  consulted  until  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  then  sent  to  Paris  to  arrest  the 
Vidame  of  Chartres,  a  powerful  noble,  who  was  the  most 
directly  compromised  in  the  matter.  A  letter  was  imme- 
diately written  by  the  King  to  his  Ambassador  to  tell  the 
King  of  Spain  what  had  happened  and  to  beg  him  to  be 
ready  in  case  of  need  to  help  him  with  military  force.^ 

The  Prince  of  Conde  was  the  head  of  the  conspiracy, 
but  it  was  not  possible  to  be  certain  whether  the  King  of 
Navarre  and  the  Queen  of  England  were  also  engaged  in  it 
or  not.  Word  was  sent  to  the  King  of  Navarre  that  a  great 
conspiracy  in  the  name  of  the  Prince  of  Conde  had  been 
prepared  in  the  realm,  and  he  was  ordered  to  bring  hig 
brother  to  Court  to  clear  himself  of  these  dishonoring 
charges.^ 

The  information  obtained  enabled  the  Cardinal  and  the 
Duke  of  Guise  to  crush  the  revolt  everywhere,  the  attempt 
to  seize  the  cities  by  small  bodies  of  soldiers  secretly  intro- 
duced into  them,  proved  a  disastrous  failure  and  by  October 
the  danger  was  over. 

The  King  of  Navarre  naturally  hesitated  under  the 
circumstances  to  obey  the  summons  to  go  to  court  and  he 
was  advised  by  large  numbers  of  gentlemen  friendly  to  him, 
either  not  to  go  at  all  or  else  to  go  accompanied  by  such 
a  train  that  his  enemies  of  the  house  of  Guise  would  not  be 
able  to  lay  hands  upon  him.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  that 
his  hesitation  was  decreased  by  the  following  very  friendly 
letter  written  by  Catherine  with  her  own  hand: 

"My  brother,  the  King  my  son  is  sending  you  Monsieur  de 
Cursol  for  the  occasion  which  he  will  tell  you  and  you  will  see 
by  the  letter  which  he  has  written.  Knowing  how  well  you  know 
that  I  love  and  esteem  him  and  the  place  which  he  holds  in  my 

'La  Place,  104,  ff.    B.  N.  It.  1721,  f.  150;  Neg.  Fr.  II,  490. 
»Neg.  Fr.  11.482. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION        175 

service,  I  will  not  write  you  any  longer  letter,  because  I  assure 
myself  that  you  will  believe  what  he  will  say  to  you  on  my  part 
as  if  it  were  myself:  which  is  what  I  beg  you  to  be  willing  to  do 
and  I  assure  you  that  there  is  no  person  in  the  world  who  desires 
more  your  peace  and  contentment  than  does  your  good  sister, 
Caterine." 

Another  letter  written  some  weeks  later  finally  succeeded 
in  overcoming  the  hesitation  of  the  King  of  Navarre,  and, 
accompanied  by  his  brother,  he  arrived  at  court,  in  the 
city  of  Orleans  on  the  31st  of  October.  They  were  re- 
ceived at  once  by  the  King  in  the  room  of  the  Queen 
Mother.  The  King  would  not  lift  his  cap  to  the  Prince 
of  Conde,  although  he  was  noted  for  his  politeness  in  bow- 
ing to  the  simplest  gentleman  of  his  realm.  On  the  other 
hand,  neither  Navarre  nor  his  brother  exchanged  the 
slightest  greetings  with  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the 
Duke  of  Guise.  Soon  afterwards  the  Queen  Mother,  the 
King  and  Queen,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  the  Duke  of 
Guise  and  the  Chancellor,  together  with  the  two  older 
brothers  of  the  house  of  Bourbon,  the  King  of  Navarre  and 
the  Cardinal  of  Bourbon,  withdrew  into  a  smaller  room  of 
the  Queen  Mother  and  sent  for  Conde,  who,  on  entering 
the  room  was  immediately  arrested  by  the  captain  of  the 
guard;  nor  could  his  two  brothers,  the  King  of  Navarre  and 
the  Cardinal  of  Bourbon,  though  they  knelt  before  the  King 
and  begged  to  have  him  put  in  their  charge,  secure  his 
release  from  prison.  Conde  bore  himself  with  dignity  but 
as  he  was  leaving  the  room  turned  and  said  to  his  brother, 
the  Cardinal  of  Bourbon,  "Sir,  with  your  assurances  of 
safety  you  have  delivered  your  own  brother  to  death." 
"Whereupon  he  was  so  much  grieved  that  he  could  not 
restrain  his  tears."  ^ 

Conde  ought  rather  to  have  reproached  Catherine,  be- 
cause it  seems  quite  certain  that,  both  directly  and  indi- 
rectly, her  assurances  had  been  the  most  effective  in  bringing 
him  within  the  trap.    The  Venetian  Ambassador  reported 

*  Letts.  I,  148;  X,  25;  B.  N.  It.  1721;  La  Place,  112. 


176  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

a  few  days  later:  "The  Prince  of  la  Roche-sur-Yon 
(Conde's  cousin)  is,  as  I  hear  from  one  of  his  confidants, 
filled  with  the  greatest  grief,  saying  that  he  is  the  cause 
why  these  gentlemen  put  themselves  in  the  hands  of  the 
King  as  they  have  done,  being  assured  by  a  firm  promise 
made  to  him  by  the  Queen  Mother.  When  he  complained 
to  the  Queen  Mother,  she  said  it  was  done  by  order  of  the 
King,  but  she  would  not  fail  to  use  all  her  influence  for 
them."  1 

This  arrest  seemed  to  paralyze  the  power  of  the  enemies 
of  the  Guise  who  began  to  feel  free  to  abandon  the  policy 
of  conciliation  that  had  been  forced  upon  them  by  Cath- 
erine. That  she  had  forced  it  upon  them  we  know,  not 
by  conjecture,  but  from  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  himself, 
for  the  Spanish  Ambassador  wrote  soon  after  the  Assembly 
of  the  Notables:  "The  Cardinal  has  lamented  to  the 
Nuncio  over  the  misery  and  calamities  of  these  times  .  .  . 
declaring  .  .  .  that,  to  his  great  grief,  it  had  been  deter- 
mined to  call  the  Estates  and  to  convoke  the  prelates 
of  France.  But  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  stop  it,  for 
the  greater  part  of  those  who  came  to  the  recent  assembly 
had  been  adherents  of  the  new  religion."  What  really  lay 
behind  the  Cardinal's  regret  expressed  in  the  Assembly  at 
Fontainebleau  that  such  severity  had  been  employed 
against  the  heretics  is  shown  by  the  following  letter  which 
he  joined  his  brother  in  writing,  soon  after  the  arrest  of 
Conde,  to  the  Comte  de  Villars,  his  agent  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  Huguenots:  "You  have  begun  so  well  that  there 
is  good  hope  that  by  this  stroke  you  will  completely  clean 
up  what  can  be  cleaned  up  of  the  vermin  which  is  in  this 
country.  We  recommend  that  those  whom  you  find  in  arms 
should  be  punished  as  you  know  the  military  laws  indicate. 
.  .  .  After  having  punished  the  leaders,  send  the  others  to 
the  galleys  where  there  is  a  great  need  of  convicts."  ^ 

In  spite  of  this  failure  of  their  enemies,  the  Guise  could 

»B.  N.  It..  1721,  Nov.  10. 

•A.  N.  K.  1493,  f.  91.    B.  N.  Nouvs.  Acqs.  6011,  f.  23. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION        177 

not  feel  that  they  were  complete  masters  of  the  situation 
because  of  the  continual  reports  of  disorder  which  came  in 
from  the  provinces.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  however, 
that  they  had  determined  on  a  policy  of  terror,  which,  if 
it  had  not  precipitated  a  civil  war  at  once,  would  have  led  to 
the  extermination  of  the  Reformed  churches  and  the  un- 
questioned supremacy  of  the  house  of  Guise.  It  is  probable 
that  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  his  brother  planned  that 
the  chief  noblemen  of  the  realm,  all  the  officers  of  the  Crown 
and  of  the  royal  household,  together  with  all  the  members 
of  the  Estates  General  which  was  shortly  to  assemble, 
should  be  compelled  to  sign  a  written  confession  of  the 
orthodox  faith  in  the  presence  of  the  King.  All  judges, 
magistrates  and  officers  of  state  throughout  the  entire  realm, 
were  afterwards  to  be  compelled  to  sign  it  and  it  was  then 
to  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  priests  of  each  parish,  who 
were  to  carry  it  from  house  to  house,  accompanied  by  the 
officers  of  the  law,  to  compel  every  subject  of  the  King 
to  sign  it  under  penalty  of  banishment,  confiscation  or 
death.^ 

They  began  this  plan  of  violent  repression  at  the  top. 
On  the  26th  of  November,  the  Prince  of  Conde  was  con- 
demned to  death  for  treason  by  the  royal  council. 

We  know  from  what  she  afterwards  did  and  from  her 
subsequent  attitude  toward  the  Prince  of  Conde,  that  this 
reversal  of  her  policy  of  conciliation  was  very  distasteful  to 
Catherine,  but  she  was  afraid  of  the  power  of  the  Guise 
and  dared  not  protest  openly.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine 
did  not  make  it  too  evident  that  he  was  acting  against 
her  judgment,  for  a  little  later  the  Spanish  Ambassador 
reported  that  the  Cardinal  and  his  brother  were  ready  to 
support  the  authority  of  the  Queen  Mother  with  all  their 
force,  but  he  simply  began  again  to  use  the  figure  of  the 
King's  mother  as  a  sort  of  seal  to  give  greater  authority 
to  his  own  decisions.    He  expected  her  to  feel  that  half  a 

*E.  g.,  C.  C.  C.  27  f.  271,  Niort;  204,  Nantes;  148,  Rouerge;  168, 
Pengueux;  228,  Bordeaux.    See  Note. 


178  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

loaf  was  better  than  no  bread,  and  to  accept  the  shew  of 
power,  while  he  destroyed  his  enemies  from  behind  the 
shelter  of  her  skirts.  He  was  an  old  and  skilful  player  at 
the  game  of  politics,  a  man,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Venetian 
Ambassador,  "without  an  equal  in  the  world  for  knowing 
how  to  dissimulate,"  but  he  was  now  to  meet  his  match  and 
be  beaten  at  his  own  game  by  this  "tall,  stout  woman  with 
a  red  face,  hair  that  looks  as  if  it  were  false,  pale  eyes,  a  big 
mouth  and  a  rough  way  of  speaking  almost  like  that  of  a 
peasant  woman,"  *  who  hated  the  elegant  Cardinal  with 
all  her  heart. 

The  first  explicit  sign  that  Catherine  had  determined 
not  to  go  back  to  exercising  a  mere  nominal  authority, 
while  a  policy  she  disapproved  of  was  carried  out  by  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  his  brother,  is  the  following  letter 
written  to  the  Constable: 

"My  Gossip:  The  King  my  son  is  sending  you  the  Marquis 
de  Villars  to  give  you  the  news  and  to  tell  you  all  that  has 
happened  since  you  wrote,  and  it  displeases  me  very  much  that 
I  am  obliged  so  often  to  return  to  our  troublous  affairs  because 
that  tires  everybody.  I  wish  that  your  health  would  permit  you 
to  be  with  us  because  I  believe  firmly  that  if  you  were  here  we 
should  be  wiser  and  you  would  help  to  bring  the  King  out  of 
tutelage,  because  you  have  always  wished  that  your  master  should 
be  obeyed  everywhere.  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  a  longer 
letter,  leaving  what  else  I  have  to  say  to  the  Marquis,  and  I 
will  close  after  having  told  you  that  I  wish  you  were  near  your 
King  and  your  good  gossip  and  friend,  Caterine." 

This  letter  was  accompanied  by  a  similar  one  to  the 
Constable's  wife  suggesting  how  very  much  Catherine 
wanted  them  both  at  court.^ 

A  week  later  the  King  was  confined  to  his  room  by 
what  was  announced  as  a  trifling  cold,  but  the  Venetian 
Ambassador  added  ten  days  later,  "The  King  is  worse  and 
the  Queen  Mother  can't  help  showing  clear  signs  of  trouble, 
not  being  able  to  hide  her  distress,  which  is  increased  be- 

*  A.  N.  K.  1493,  Rel.  I,  4,  p.  132.    Swiss  Envoy  qtd..  Whitehead,  86. 
•Letts.  I,  153. 


CATHERINE'S  POLICY  OF  CONCILIATION        179 

cause  she  remembers  the  prognostications  made  by  certain 
astrologers  who  agreed  in  prophesying  for  His  Majesty  the 
very  shortest  of  lives."  That  the  Ambassador  had  rightly 
read  the  signs  of  Catherine's  distress  in  spite  of  the  public 
announcement  that  the  illness  of  the  King  was  not  serious, 
appears  from  the  following  letter  to  her  sister-in-law  written 
in  the  end  of  November: 

"To  Madame  the  Duchess  op  Savoy. 
"Madame: 

"I  do  not  know  where  to  commence  my  letter  when  I  think 
of  the  state  in  which  I  find  myself  because  of  the  trouble  and 
aflfliction  which  it  pleases  God  to  send  me  after  so  many  evils  and 
such  unhappiness,  to  see  the  state  in  which  the  King  my  son  is 
from  a  pain  in  the  head  so  extreme  that,  although  I  still  hope 
that  our  Lord  will  not  do  me  so  much  unhappiness  as  to  take 
him  away  from  me,  nevertheless  I  see,  Madame,  that  he  is  very 
sick.  ...  I  will  not  fail  to  send  you  word  immediately  if  God 
does  me  the  grace  to  heal  him,  as  I  am  praying  Him  to  do,  and 
to  give  you  as  much  contentment  as  is  desired  for  you  by  your 
very  humble  and  obedient  sister,  Caterine." 

On  the  5th  of  December,  1560,  the  mother's  fears  were 
realized.  The  young  King  died  from  the  results  of  an 
abscess  in  the  inner  ear  which  the  surgery  of  the  day  could 
not  help.^ 

*B.  N.  It.  1721,  f.  194,  201.    Letts.  I,  154;  Corlieu,  21. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  DEATH  OP  FRANCIS  II — CATHERINE  REGENT  OF  FRANCE 

Catherine  was  now  forty-one  and  in  that  middle  time 
of  life  of  which  Dante  wrote,  "When  I  had  gone  half-way 
on  life's  journey  the  path  led  into  a  thick  woods  and  was 
lost."  The  dominant  trait  of  her  character,  the  will  to 
power — had  found  circumstances  so  unfavorable  to  its  de- 
velopment and  had  been  kept  so  resolutely  in  the  back- 
ground, that  its  very  existence  was  scarcely  suspected  even 
by  those  who  stood  nearest  to  her.  She  was  now  to  show 
what  she  was  and  during  the  next  dozen  years  to  develop 
rapidly  into  something  different. 

The  dangerous  character  of  the  King's  illness  had  been 
concealed  as  much  as  possible  and  when  he  died  the  expec- 
tation was  that  the  house  of  Guise  would  maintain  their 
dominant  position  in  the  state,  for  they  had  "not  only  great 
forces  in  town  but  they  have  sent  for  more,  which  arrive 
daily  little  by  little.  The  Constable  is  on  his  way  and  the 
Queen  Mother  has  sent  him  word  to  hurry  up.  If  the 
Guises  at  his  coming  find  that  they  have  the  largest  force, 
they  will  not  fail  to  stand  strongly  for  it,  whatever  it  may 
cost  them."  ^ 

Even  if  her  husband  had  died  less  suddenly,  it  is  not 
probable  that  Catherine  would  then  have  made  any  prepa- 
rations to  assume  control  of  the  government.  Her  courage 
to  exercise  her  love  of  power  grew  with  use;  just  as  it  is 
manifest  that  her  self-reliance  grew  in  later  years.  But  now, 
warned  of  the  danger  of  her  son's  death,  Catherine  was 
ready  to  forestall  a  second  usurpation  of  power  by  the  Guise 
and  had  made  preparations  to  assume  (equally  against  the 
ancient  customs)  the  direction  of  the  state.    The  death  of 

*Cal.  F.  6Dec.  1560. 

180 


THE  DEATH  OF  FRANCIS  II  181 

Francis  II  took  from  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  his 
brother  the  strongest  support  of  their  power,  because, 
through  their  niece  the  young  Queen,  they  had  been  able  to 
control  the  feeble  will  of  the  King  even  against  the  advice 
of  his  mother.  Catherine  had  brought  up  her  children  to 
the  most  exaggerated  dependence  and  obedience.  Turenne, 
who  was  educated  at  court  with  her  youngest  son,  recalled 
afterwards  a  letter  in  which  she  told  the  boy  not  to  trust 
entirely  in  his  governor  or  any  of  his  tutors  but  to  express 
his  inmost  thoughts  only  to  her.  She  had  very  much  re- 
sented the  fact  that  her  oldest  son  had  not  looked  to  her  as 
his  chief  adviser,  and  her  lasting  dislike  of  Mary,  Queen  of 
Scots,  is  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  Francis 
II  had  listened  more  to  his  wife  than  to  his  mother ;  without 
assuming  the  truth  of  the  common  report  that  Catherine 
always  remembered  with  bitterness  the  fact  that  the  young 
girl  had  once  spoken  of  her  scornfully  as  "a  merchant's 
daughter."  ^ 

The  new  King,  Charles  IX,  was  only  ten  years  old  and 
Catherine  prevented  the  possibility  of  anybody  stepping  in 
between  them  by  sleeping  in  his  room.  The  day  after  his 
brother's  death,  the  young  King  summoned  the  princes  of 
the  blood,  the  Cardinals,  the  Dukes,  the  chief  officers  of 
state,  and  the  members  of  the  privy  council  to  his  room 
and  announced  that  he  desired  them  to  do  what  his  mother 
would  command  them,  with  the  advice  of  the  council.  The 
five  captains  of  the  Guards  and  the  Swiss  were  also  sum- 
moned before  him  and  ordered  to  obey  his  mother.  All 
the  chevaliers  of  the  order  of  St.  Michel  and  all  the  gentle- 
men of  the  royal  household  received  similar  commands. 
Four  days  later  a  royal  letter  announced :  "The  King  has 
begged  his  very  dear  and  well-beloved  mother  to  take  in 
hand  the  administration  of  the  realm  with  the  advice  and 
counsel  of  his  beloved  uncle,  the  King  of  Navarre,  and  the 
royal  council."  The  Spanish  Ambassador  reported  to  his 
master  that  he  had  heard  from  one  of  the  members  of  the 

*  Bouillon.  Cal.  F,  1563,  p.  278;  Melville,  31;  Cheruel  ctd.,  17. 


182  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

royal  council,  the  Cardinal  of  Toumon,  that  this  action  had 
been  taken  unanimously  by  the  council;  in  which  the 
houses  of  Bourbon  and  Montmorency  had  again  taken  their 
seats.^ 

One  of  Catherine's  first  acts  was  to  release  the  Prince  of 
Conde  from  prison.  He  took  back  his  sword,  cursing  the 
Duke  of  Guise,  which  was  only  one  of  the  reasons  why  the 
Venetian  Ambassador  did  not  believe  that  this  seeming 
peace  would  last.  "There  are,"  he  wrote,  "many  old  en- 
mities at  court,  especially  between  members  of  the  house 
of  Bourbon  and  the  Guise  and  the  Constable.  .  .  .  The 
Constable  is  of  a  nature  which  will  accept  no  equal  and  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  will  brook  no  superior  .  .  .  and  the 
Cardinal  is  so  hated  by  everyone  that,  if  the  general  wish 
had  anything  to  do  with  regulating  the  situation,  not  only 
would  he  have  no  power  in  the  government,  but  perhaps 
he  would  not  be  left  aUve  in  the  world."  December  7th 
there  were  added  to  the  royal  council  of  the  late  King  which 
had  approved  the  command  of  Charles  IX  in  regard  to  the 
constitution  of  the  government,  eleven  more,  chiefly  old 
members  of  the  council,  under  Francis  I  and  Henry  11.^ 

That  the  houses  of  Bourbon  and  Montmorency  did  not 
intend  to  become  simply  pawns  in  the  Queen's  game  is  evi- 
dent from  a  conversation  with  the  Constable  reported  by 
the  Spanish  Ambassador  the  8th  of  December,  1560. 

"The  Constable  said  that,  if  the  Queen  Mother  should  want  to 
use  your  Majesty's  support  and  that  of  the  Dukes  of  Savoy  and 
Lorraine  to  maintain  her  authority,  you  ought  not  to  make  any 
move  against  the  princes  of  the  blood  and  the  Constable  who  are 
the  only  ones  who  can  oppose  and  be  a  counterweight  to  the 
Queen  Mother's  authority.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  the  Queen 
Mother  can  possibly  oppose  the  King  of  Navarre,  because  the 
nobles  and  the  people  are  entirely  of  his  party.  I  am  further 
of  the  opinion  that,  if  she  aroused  any  suspicion  that  she  was 
calling  in  aid  from  outside  the  realm,  it  would  be  her  ruin  and 
perhaps  a  risk  for  the  crown  of  her  son;  for  it  is  thought  almost 

*Cal.  F.  9  Dec.  1560,  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  7225,  f.  31,  A.  N.  K.  1493. 
»A.  N.  K.,  Whitehead  ctd.,  90;  B.  N.  It.  1723.  f.  10,  Valois,  180. 


THE  DEATH  OF  FRANCIS  II  183 

a  crime  of  lese  majeste  to  call  in  foreign  troops  for  what  concerns 
the  government  of  this  realm."  ^ 

These  prophecies  either  of  trouble  or  the  second  efface- 
ment  of  the  authority  of  the  Queen  Mother  by  the  substi- 
tution of  Bourbon-Montmorency  control  for  Guise  control, 
were  certainly  plausible.  Catherine  was  in  a  situation 
which  she  thus  describes  to  her  daughter,  the  Queen  of 
Spain,  "Left  with  three  little  children  in  a  realm  completely 
split  up,  without  a  single  person  sufficiently  disinterested 
for  me  to  be  able  to  trust  him  entirely,"  but  she  played  her 
cards  so  well  that  she  won  a  complete  victory.  Confident 
of  retaining  the  affection  and  obedience  of  her  little  son, 
she  saw  at  a  glance  that  the  turning  point  in  the  whole  situ- 
ation lay  in  the  will  of  the  first  prince  of  the  blood,  the  King 
of  Navarre.  She  therefore  entered  into  secret  negotiations 
with  him  while  at  the  same  time  she  manipulated  the  other 
members  of  the  royal  council.  The  result  can  be  best  de- 
scribed in  her  own  words.  Two  weeks  after  the  King's 
death  she  wrote  to  the  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid: 

"Monsieur  de  Limoges:  You  will  have  learned  by  the  last 
dispatch  the  unhappy  accident  which  has  happened  to  us,  and  I 
assure  myself  that  you  will  have  already  judged  how  much  that, 
added  to  my  other  sorrows,  has  increased  my  affliction,  which  I 
could  not  bear  without  the  very  great  grace  of  our  Lord.  But 
as  I  have  thought  and  know  that  He  does  everything  for  the  best, 
I  am  resolved  ...  to  praise  and  thank  Him  for  whatever  He  is 
pleased  to  send  to  me,  hoping  by  His  aid  to  nourish  and  bring 
up  the  young  King  whom  He  has  left  me  the  best  way  I  can  to 
His  honor  and  glory,  and  for  the  good  of  the  people  whom  He 
has  put  under  his  power.  It  has  been  found  best  by  all  the 
princes  of  the  blood,  the  lords  of  the  coimcil  and  other  great 
personages  of  this  realm  that  the  principal  and  sovereign  author- 
ity in  it  should  remain  in  my  hands.  .  .  ."  ^ 

On  the  same  day  she  wrote  more  intimately  to  her 
daughter,  the  Queen  of  Spain: 

'  A.  N.  K.  1494,  1499,  Dec.  8. 
'Letts.  I,  568,  569. 


184  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

"Although  I  am  compelled  to  have  the  King  of  Navarre  uejct 
to  me  becs^use  the  laws  of  this  kingdom  provide,  when  the  King 
is  a  child,  that  the  prince  of  the  blood  should  be  next  to  the 
mother,  nevertheless  ...  he  is  obedient  to  me  and  has  no  com- 
mands to  give  except  what  I  permit  him  to  give.  And  also  I 
am  recalling  to  my  side  the  Constable  and  all  the  old  servitors 
of  your  grandfather  and  father.  .  .  .  My  daughter,  my  friend, 
you  see  the  afflictions  which  it  has  pleased  God  to  send  me, 
which  are  greater  than  He  has  ever  sent  to  anybody  else.  Never- 
theless amidst  all  these  sorrows  He  does  me  the  grace  to  enable 
me  to  see  your  brother  honored  and  obeyed  and  myself  also  and 
this  kingdom's  increase  and  union,  which  is  to  me  a  great 
comfort;  but  the  greatest  comfort  is  the  hope  which  I  have  in 
you,  who  will  surely  keep  the  King  your  husband  in  the  peace 
in  which  the  King  your  brother  has  left  this  realm  with  him."  ^ 

Over  all  this  satisfaction  just  one  shadow  rested.  What 
would  the  Estates  General  do  when  they  met?  "The 
ancient  custom  of  holding  estates  had  been  interrupted  for 
nearly  eighty  years,  so  that  the  memory  of  man  did  not  go 
back  to  them."  Catherine  probably  did  not  know  that  the 
leading  debater  of  the  last  Estates  had  denounced  the  flat- 
terers "who  attribute  to  the  Prince  that  sovereignty  which 
is  only  conferred  by  the  people,"  and  that  the  whole  hall 
had  resounded  with  murmurs  of  discontent  when  the  Chan- 
cellor spoke  "badly  on  the  subject  of  the  liberty  and  power 
of  the  people,"  but  the  letters  partially  cited  show  between 
the  lines  an  uneasy  consciousness  that  the  Estates  had 
claimed  to  regulate  the  regency  for  a  minor  King  and  that 
she  had  exactly  reversed  the  understood  rule  of  law  in 
stating  that  the  chief  authority  ought  to  come  to  the  Queen 
Mother  and  that  the  first  prince  of  the  blood  ought  to  be 
next  under  her.  Nevertheless  the  desperate  financial  con- 
dition of  the  kingdom  made  the  meeting  of  the  Estates 
absolutely  necessary.^ 

One  danger  indeed  which  might  once  have  threatened, 
Catherine  did  not  need  to  fear.  The  wild  stories  of  the  his- 
tory attributed  to  de  la  Planche  are  not  trustworthy,  but 

'Letts.  I,  568. 

'Recueil,  45,  50;  Maaselin,  147,  391. 


THE  DEATH  OF  FRANCIS  II  185 

ttiere  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  an  attempt  had  been 
made  before  the  King's  death  to  pack  the  Estates  and  over- 
awe them.  We  know  that  some  deputies  had  been  afraid  to 
come  because  of  the  armed  forces  assembled  in  various 
parts  of  the  kingdom.  But  local  feeling  was  still  very 
strong  in  France  and  very  recalcitrant  to  any  pressure  from 
the  center.  In  addition,  the  method  of  election  was  one 
which  would  have  been  rather  difi&cult  to  manage:  so  that 
the  packing  of  the  Estates  General  would  never  have  been 
an  easy  matter  and  whatever  possible  danger  might  have 
existed  to  Catherine's  plans  from  an  assembly  partly  packed 
or  intimidated  by  the  Guise,  was  utterly  destroyed  by  the 
fact  that  they  had  lost  by  the  death  of  Francis  II  the  back- 
ing of  the  King.  For  the  dominant  force  in  French  political 
life  was  the  power  of  loyalty  to  the  person  of  the  King. 
Fifteen  years  before,  the  Venetian  Ambassador  had  reported 
that  ''the  French  had  put  all  their  liberty  in  the  power  of 
the  King,  so  that  now  their  title,  Reges  Francorum,  might 
truthfully  be  changed  to  Reges  Servorum."  At  the  time 
of  which  we  are  now  writing  another  Ambassador  wrote: 
"The  power  of  the  King  in  France  is  founded  on  a  respect 
and  love  which  reaches  almost  to  adoration;  a  thing  not 
only  extraordinary,  but  absolutely  unique,  which  can  be 
seen  nowhere  else  in  the  whole  of  Christendom."  The 
Estates  showed  at  the  very  beginning  that  they  were  free 
from  any  overmastering  Guise  influence,  for  when  the  clergy, 
who  were  favorable  to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  invited  the 
other  two  Estates  to  join  them  in  appointing  him  joint 
orator  to  address  the  King,  they  politely  declined,  prefer- 
ring to  elect  their  own  orators.^ 

The  Chancellor  opened  the  Assembly  with  one  of  the 
greatest  of  his  speeches,  pointing  out  that,  "although  the 
King  is  neither  obliged  to  take  the  advice  nor  to  grant  the 
complaints  of  his  subjects,  the  purpose  of  the  Estates  is  to 
enable  him  to  know  the  truth  and  to  do  justice."  There 
were  three  subjects  on  which  the  King  wanted  their  advice, 

»Neg.  Ft.  II,  489,  Recuea;  Rel.  I,  1,  p.  232. 


186  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

religion,  debts  and  the  reform  of  the  administration.  "The 
reahn  is  full  of  sedition,  for  which  religion  is  alleged  as  a 
principal  cause,  a  thing  almost  incredible  that  such  evil 
should  come  out  of  good.  It  is  no  more  permissible  for  a 
subject  to  defend  himself  against  his  prince  than  for  a  son 
to  resist  his  father  and  it  makes  no  difference  whether  the 
prince  is  good  or  bad,  we  are  even  more  bound  to  obey  him 
than  a  son  his  father.  .  .  .  The  property  of  the  King  de- 
mands your  help,  for  no  orphan  was  ever  left  in  so  piteous  a 
condition.  .  .  .  His  Majesty  and  the  Queen  Mother  further 
invite  you  to  express  with  entire  liberty  your  complaints  and 
grievances."  The  Chancellor  did  not  touch  upon  the  funda- 
mental question  of  the  constitution  of  the  regency  during 
the  minority  of  the  King,  and  Catherine  was  taking  rather 
a  dangerous  position  before  the  Estates  General,  for  she 
was  asking  their  help  while  ignoring  their  authority.^ 

But  here  again  events  proved  the  practical  wisdom  of 
her  action.  The  question  was,  indeed,  not  altogether  ig- 
nored. The  deputies  from  many  baillages,  disclaiming  any 
intention  of  suggesting  "that  the  Estates  should  give  law  to 
the  King,  Queen  or  Princes,"  asserted  that  it  had  been  the 
custom  at  all  times,  when  there  was  a  minor  King,  that  the 
government  should  be  confirmed  and  authorized  by  the 
Estates,  and  asked  (as  they  had  been  elected  before  the 
King's  death)  to  be  sent  back  to  their  constituents  for 
instructions.  Even  this  timid  move  to  claim  constitutional 
authority  was  speedily  dropped  and  the  supreme  right  to 
speak  for  her  son  which  Catherine  assumed  in  her  message 
to  the  Estates,  was  practically  endorsed  in  a  letter  to  her  by 
the  Third  Estate  recognizing  "the  benefits  we  are  sure  to 
receive  from  the  charge  of  the  education  and  affairs  of  the 
King  which  God  has  put  into  your  hands."  ^ 

But  though  the  Estates  had  little  to  say  about  the 
usurpation  of  authority  in  constituting  the  regency  they 
were  outspoken  enough  about  other  matters.    They  painted 

^Pieces,  I,  42. 

*Cahier8,  I,  179;  Pieces,  I,  189. 


THE  DEATH  OF  FRANCIS  II  187 

in  dark  colors  the  condition  of  the  Church  and  denounced 
a  large  number  of  abuses  in  the  administration.  They  com- 
plained of  intolerable  taxation  and  described  the  resulting 
misery  of  the  people.  The  greater  part  of  these  suggestions 
in  regard  to  administration  were  finally  embodied  by 
I'Hospital  in  the  great  Ordonnance  of  Orleans  and  the  sup- 
plementary Ordonnance  of  Roussillon  and  Moulins,  estab- 
lishing reforms  in  the  methods  of  administration  of  church 
and  state.  Of  the  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  articles  of 
these  ordonnances,  over  one  hundred  and  ninety  were 
suggested  by  the  cahiers  or  complaints  of  the  Estates  of 
Orleans.  Many  of  these  reforms  were  not,  it  is  true,  put 
into  practice,  but  no  Estates  General  exercised  a  larger 
influence  on  the  administration  of  France.  Catherine's 
policy  of  conciliation  in  the  matter  of  religion  was  endorsed. 
The  clergy  indeed  spoke  in  favor  of  a  continuance  of  per- 
secution. The  nobility  split,  but  two  of  their  three  cahiera 
show  sympathy  with  toleration  to  the  Reformed.  The  Third 
Estate  demanded  the  stopping  of  persecution  and  charged 
heresy  to  neglect  of  duty  by  the  clergy,  whose  flocks,  un- 
cared  for  by  their  pastors,  had  fallen  into  error  for  which 
they  ought  no  longer  to  be  punished.* 

The  failure  of  the  Estates  of  Orleans  to  speak  out  boldly 
on  the  constitutional  question  of  the  right  to  constitute  the 
government  during  the  minority  of  a  king,  was  in  marked 
contrast  to  the  utterances  on  this  subject  at  the  last  Estates 
held  seventy-six  years  before  at  Tours.  This  decline  of 
boldness  in  asserting  rights  may  have  been  the  result  of  a 
general  process.  Bodin  in  1576,  combating  the  opinion  that 
"the  Estates  of  the  people  are  greater  than  the  King"  says, 
"in  short,  all  the  discourses  of  the  Estates  contain  nothing 
but  subjection,  service  and  obedience.  The  same  thing  was 
seen  at  the  Estates  of  Orleans  and  it  can  not  be  said  that  in 
Spain  there  is  any  different  usage,  because  the  same  submis- 
sion and  praises  of  subjection,  service  and  obedience  of  the 
whole  people  toward  the  King  of  Spain  as  their  sovereign 

*  Cahiers,  I,  307. 


188  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Lord,  appear  in  the  discourse  of  the  Estates  held  at  Toledo 
in  the  year  1552."  ^  Bodin's  explanation  of  the  silence  of 
the  Estates  of  Orleans  may  be  the  right  one,  but  it  may  be 
suspected  that  the  members  who  were  willing  to  assert  the 
constitutional  rights  of  the  Estates  General  during  a  re- 
gency preferred  to  do  so  under  a  direct  mandate  from  their 
constituents  and  so  forced  a  dismissal  and  reconvocation  of 
the  Estates. 

They  had  little  difficulty  in  doing  this  on  the  question  of 
supply;  for  the  debts  of  the  Crown  were  enormous  and  a 
large  proportion  of  them  were  at  cutthroat  interest.  The 
Crown  asked  the  clergy  to  agree  to  relieve  the  King  by 
buying  back  the  sources  of  income  he  had  pledged  as  se- 
curity and  the  Third  Estate.to  vote  an  increase  of  the  taxes. 
All  over  the  world,  wherever  representative  Estates  met, 
the  right  of  consent  to  taxation  was  claimed.  Even  Bodin, 
who  thought  both  France  and  England  absolute  monarchies, 
assumed  this  right.  "It  is  not,"  he  says,  "in  the  power  of  a 
king  in  the  world  to  levy  a  tax  on  the  people  at  his  pleasure 
any  more  than  to  take  the  property  of  another."  He  was 
only  echoing  the  idea  of  Commines,  who  at  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century  asked  rhetorically,  "Is  there  a  king  in  the 
world  who  has  the  right  to  levy  a  cent  of  taxes  on  his  sub- 
jects without  consent,  except  by  tyranny  or  violence?"  As 
far  as  France  was  concerned,  shrewd  foreigners  saw  that 
this  theoretical  right  of  consent  was  entirely  illusory.  Sir 
John  Fortescue,  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench  under 
Henry  VI,  pointed  out  with  pride  in  his  work  on  "The 
Governance  of  England,"  that  while  an  English  King  might 
not  levy  new  taxes  without  the  assent  of  Parliament,  "the 
French  King  took  upon  him  to  set  tallies  and  other  imposi- 
tions upon  the  Commons  without  the  assent  of  the  three 
Estates;  but  yet  he  would  not  set  any  such  charges,  nor 
hath  set,  upon  the  nobles,  for  fear  of  rebellion."  A  few 
years  after  Commines  oratorically  denied  the  arbitrary 
taxing  power  of  the  Crown,  a  man  who  like  him  knew  by 

*See  Note. 


THE  DEATH  OF  FRANCIS  II  189 

practice  affairs  of  state,  Niccolo  Machiavelli,  visited  France 
as  an  envoy  of  Florence.  He  writes:  "The  French  people 
are  submissive  and  hold  their  kings  in  great  veneration.  I 
have  asked  a  great  many  people  and  they  have  all  replied 
that  the  revenue  of  the  Crown  depended  entirely  upon  the 
will  of  the  King."  It  was  the  same  a  generation  later  when 
the  Venetian  Ambassador  reports:  "The  present  King  can 
boast  of  far  surpassing  all  his  predecessors  as  well  in  making 
his  subjects  pay  extraordinary  taxes  to  any  amount  he 
wishes,  etc.,  etc."  But  although  the  idea  that  consent  was 
necessary  to  taxation  had  been  in  France  only  a  remarkable 
instance  of  the  persistence  of  a  traditional  theory  of  gov- 
ernment in  spite  of  practices  which  denied  it,  the  Crown 
dared  not,  in  view  of  the  temper  of  the  realm,  refuse  to 
recognize  the  formal  assertion  of  it  by  the  Estates.  There 
was  nothing  for  Catherine,  acting  in  the  name  of  the  boy 
King,  to  do  but  dismiss  them  with  orders  to  consult  their 
constituents  and  reassemble  at  Melun  the  first  of  May.^ 

The  Estates  closed  on  the  thirty-first  day  of  January, 
1561,  and  Catherine  expressed  her  satisfaction  that  "they 
have  confirmed  in  me  the  government  and  administration 
of  the  person  of  the  King  my  son  and  of  the  realm."  Even 
before  this  she  had  begun  to  take  measures  to  suppress 
disorder.  She  wrote  two  letters  to  Tavannes,  Lieutenant 
Governor  of  Burgundy,  telling  him  that  Maligny,  the  leader 
of  the  attempt  to  seize  Lyons  in  the  late  conspiracy,  was 
lurking  in  his  house  near  Tonnerre,  bidding  him  "at  any 
price,  even  to  battering  down  his  house  if  it  is  necessary,  to 
put  his  hand  upon  his  collar  and  if  you  can  get  him,  send 
him  secretly  to  some  place  so  safe  and  so  hidden  that  no  one 
can  know  where  he  is  and  at  the  same  time  send  me  word 
with  the  utmost  quickness."  She  also  wrote  to  the  French 
Ambassador  in  Switzerland  a  long  letter  enclosing  a  letter 
from  the  King  to  the  citizens  of  Geneva.  The  royal  letter 
said: 

*Bodin  Rep.  I,  Ch.  VIII;  Fortescue,  Ch.  Ill;  Machiavelli,  I,  63;  Rel. 
1, 1,  p.  232;  Pieces,  1, 166, 194. 


190  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

"The  King  has  found  that  the  terrible  troubles  of  his  king- 
dom had  their  active  cause  in  the  malice  of  some  preachers, 
mostly  sent  by  you  or  the  chief  ministers  of  your  city,  who  have 
not  only  gone  from  house  to  house  secretly  impressing  on  the 
minds  of  the  greater  part  of  our  subjects  a  pernicious  and 
damnable  disobedience,  but  by  an  infinite  number  of  defamatory 
libels  and  by  sermons  in  large  assemblies  have  dared  to  incite 
our  people  to  open  rebellion."  He  begged  them  to  recall 
these  preachers  and  keep  them  from  coming  any  more  or  "we 
will  consider  it  a  treacherous  war  on  this  kingdom  and  a  just 
cause  for  quarrel  before  God  and  the  world."  ^ 

But  while  the  Government  tried  to  stop  the  importation 
of  heresy  and  to  nip  rebellion  in  the  bud,  it  did  not  intend 
to  oppose  the  unanimous  wish  of  the  Third  Estate,  backed 
by  the  sympathy  of  two-thirds  of  the  nobility,  that  the 
policy  of  conciliation  endorsed  by  the  Assembly  of  Fon- 
tainebleau,  but  forced  out  of  Catherine's  hands  for  a  time 
by  the  Guise,  should  be  resumed. 

Catherine  knew  that  this  policy  would  be  very  displeas- 
ing to  her  son-in-law,  the  King  of  Spain,  whose  support  she 
was  very  anxious  to  retain.  Indeed,  he  had  already  sent 
her  an  envoy  charged  to  express  his  willingness  to  give  his 
entire  support  to  her  authority,  but  ordered,  "You  must 
talk  to  Queen  Catherine  very  clearly  and  very  openly  in 
regard  to  religion,  telling  her  that  she  must  never  permit 
the  new  doctrines  which  have  been  planted  within  her 
realm  to  make  greater  progress  in  it."  She  wrote  therefore 
a  long  letter  to  the  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid  to  explain 
the  reasons  for  her  policy. 

"We  have  during  twenty  or  thirty  years  tried  cautery  with 
the  idea  of  cutting  out  the  contagion  of  this  evil  from  among  us 
and  we  have  seen  by  experience  that  violence  has  not  served 
except  to  increase  and  multiply  it.  ...  It  has  been  said  by  many 
people  of  good  judgment  that  the  worst  means  for  suppressing 
these  new  opinions  is  the  public  death  of  those  who  hold  them, 
because  it  was  to  be  seen  that  they  were  strengthened  by  such 
spectacles.  ...  I  have  been  counselled  by  all  the  princes  of  the 

» Letts.  I,  161,  164,  574,  B.  N.  Brienne.  205  f.  203. 


THE  DEATH  OF  FRANCIS  II  191 

blood  and  other  princes  and  lords  of  the  council  of  the  King  my 
son  to  follow  the  way  of  gentleness  in  this  matter,  in  order  to 
try  by  honest  remonstrances,  exhortations  and  preaching  to  lead 
back  those  who  are  wandering  in  the  matter  of  faith  and  to 
punish  severely  those  who  shall  be  guilty  of  scandals  or  sedition. 
.  .  .  The  evil  is  so  deeply  rooted  that  it  is  very  difficult,  not  to 
say  impossible,  to  drive  it  out  except  by  the  remedy  of  a  general 
council:  the  only  remedy  left  for  the  union  of  Christianity  and 
the  healing  of  all  our  ills.  Nevertheless  you  can  assure  the  King, 
my  good  son,  that  I  will  turn  my  hand  as  I  ought  to  the  support 
of  the  Catholic  religion,  without  permitting  that  anything  in  the 
world  shall  be  changed  in  it  and  that  I  will  give  the  utmost 
pains  to  keep  all  things  in  peace  and  tranquillity  until  the 
meeting  of  the  council."  ^ 

Catherine  knew,  although  she  gave  no  sign  of  it  in  this 
letter,  that  Philip's  dislike  of  the  policy  of  conciliation  in 
the  matter  of  religion  was  being  used  to  her  disadvantage 
by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  his  brother,  the  Duke  of 
Guise,  whom  she  had  displaced  from  power.  Her  deep 
resentment  of  this  appears  in  a  letter  written  some  weeks 
later  to  her  daughter,  the  only  person  to  whom  she  ever 
wrote  with  entire  frankness.  She  begs  her  to  warn  her  hus- 
band against  news  "sent  from  here  by  those  who  are 
accustomed  to  be  King  [the  Guise]."    She  continues: 

"They  will  always  take  the  utmost  pains  to  make  all  my 
actions  seem  evil  from  the  fear  that  their  false  and  great  ambi- 
tions might  become  known,  as  well  as  the  fact  that  they  are 
strangers  in  this  realm:  because  they  are  so  much  hated  in  it 
that,  as  long  as  they  were  in  sight  near  me  in  the  government, 
I  could  never  have  such  obedience  as  I  have  since  they  have  gone 
to  their  own  houses."  Their  great  object  is  to  make  trouble 
between  Catherine  and  her  son-in-law,  "thinking  that,  if  there 
were  war,  I  should  be  obliged  to  put  myself  again  in  their  hands. 
But  I  promise  you  I  will  never  again  do  that,  for  they  have  been 
too  ungrateful  to  me  and  have  ruined  the  realm.  Instead  of 
thinking  that  everything  is  going  to  ruin  because  the  Cardinal 
is  no  longer  at  court,  I  assure  you  it  is  just  that  [hia  absence] 
which  gives  ijie  a  chance  to  put  everything  in  good  shape."  ^ 

*Ctd.  Letts.  I,  163;  note,  577. 
'Letts.  I,  581,  Comp.  592. 


192  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Catherine's  deep  dislike  of  the  Guise  was  frankly  ex- 
pressed only  to  her  daughter.  Within  a  short  time  of  these 
letters  she  wrote  to  the  Duchess  of  Guise  to  express  her 
"great  trouble  at  hearing  of  the  illness  of  her  husband, 
because  she  is  as  anxious  for  his  health  and  happiness  as 
for  her  own."  Curiously  enough,  therefore,  she  was  exposed 
to  a  back-fire  by  the  accusation  that  she  was  giving  them 
too  much  influence  in  government.  She  had  indeed  gotten 
rid  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  returned  to  his  bish- 
opric about  the  middle  of  February,  burdened,  according  to 
the  Venetian  Ambassador,  "with  the  hatred  of  everybody 
because  of  his  obstinacy,  his  vanity  in  conducting  affairs, 
his  changeableness  and  his  proud  and  difficult  manners." 
But  no  sooner  was  he  gone  than  the  Duke  of  Guise,  his 
brother,  began  to  rise  in  reputation  and  apparent  influence.^ 

The  consequence  of  this  was  a  savage  outbreak  of  the 
old  jealousy  of  the  Bourbon-Montmorency  faction,  aggra- 
vated by  the  desire  of  the  Prince  of  Conde  to  obtain,  not 
only  the  reversal  of  his  late  sentence  to  death  for  treason, 
but  the  punishment  of  those  who  had  been  concerned  in 
inflicting  it  upon  him.  The  consequence  was  that  the  King 
of  Navarre  said  that,  if  the  Duke  of  Guise  didn't  leave  the 
court,  he  would,  and  the  Constable  backed  him  up.  The 
Duke  replied  that  although  he  had  been  entirely  willing  and 
even  anxious  to  leave  court  before,  now  that  the  King  of 
Navarre  said  that  he  must  go,  he  wouldn't  go.  Whereupon 
the  King  of  Navarre  packed  up  his  baggage,  announced  that 
he  intended  to  leave  and  the  Constable  and  all  his  followers 
proposed  to  follow  him.  In  this  desperate  situation,  which 
in  the  eyes  of  everybody  threatened  an  outbreak  of  civil 
war,  Catherine  acted  with  the  utmost  tact.  She  sent  the 
little  King  to  the  Constable,  and  the  boy,  calling  him  "Mon 
Compere"  (the  phrase  which  his  father  had  always  used),  re- 
minded him  of  how  much  King  Henry  had  loved  him  and 
of  the  oath  which  he  had  taken  never  to  desert  the  little  son 
of  his  old  master,  and  commanded  him  by  his  love  for  his 

*B.  N.  It.  1723,  f.  13. 


THE  DEATH  OF  FRANCIS  II  193 

father  and  that  oath  "not  to  leave  me."  Very  much  touched 
by  this  scene,  the  Constable  interceded  with  the  King  of 
Navarre  and  persuaded  him  to  recall  the  baggage  which  had 
already  been  dispatched.  The  Duke  of  Guise  took  up  the 
olive-branch,  said  that  he  had  always  defended  the  inno- 
cence of  the  Prince  of  Conde  (which  of  course  was  not  in 
the  least  true)  and  recommended  that  all  the  documents  in 
that  case  should  be  burnt.  In  this  way  a  sort  of  peace  was 
patched  up. 

The  outcome  was  regarded  as  a  complete  victory  for  the 
Bourbon-Montmorency  faction,  and  the  whole  court  fol- 
lowed the  winners.  A  few  days  later  the  Venetian  Ambas- 
sador wrote:  "Guise  is  much  alone.  It  is  true  he  always 
has  with  him  some  twenty  men,  mostly  Italians,  who  follow 
him  at  a  distance  and  never  let  him  out  of  their  sight.  .  .  . 
It  is  certain  that  this  government  is  full  of  jealousy  and 
suspicion.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  any  small  occasion  may 
cause  some  great  disturbance."  ^ 

*B.  N.  It.  1723.  f.  16.  20  A.  N.  K  1494.  f.  50. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CATHERINE  DEFENDS  HER  AUTHORITY  BY  POLITICS 

We  have  seen  already  that  Catherine  had  probably  been 
largely  influenced  in  her  decision  to  employ  a  new  policy  of 
conciliation  of  the  Huguenots  by  her  fears  that  the  Queen 
of  England  might  become  involved  in  the  civil  troubles  of 
France.  Her  fear  of  Spain  was  much  greater  than  her  fear 
of  England  and  this  fear,  with  the  dislike  which  grew  out  of 
it  as  the  years  passed,  remained  one  of  the  most  constant 
secret  motives  of  her  life;  in  spite  of  the  fact,  perhaps 
because  of  the  fact,  that  she  was  obliged  repeatedly  to  turn 
to  Philip  for  help.  We  must  therefore  understand  the 
abrupt  change  in  direction,  joined  to  a  somewhat  subtle 
play  of  motives  not  obvious,  of  Philip's  policy  in  regard  to 
French  factions. 

Previous  to  this  time  the  King  of  Spain  had  been  much 
afraid  of  the  Guise.  During  the  Hfetime  of  Henry  II,  Philip 
had  naturally  supported  the  Montmorency  party  because 
the  Constable  was  the  advocate  of  peace  and  the  Guise  of 
war,  with  Spain.  Peace  and  the  reign  of  Francis  II  had 
brought  a  new  active  cause  for  distrusting  the  Guise.  They 
had  been  anxious  during  all  that  reign  not  only  to  support 
the  authority  of  their  niece  Mary,  Queen  of  France  and  of 
Scotland,  but  indirectly  to  back  her  claim  as  the  orthodox 
and  therefore  only  rightful  heir  to  the  throne  of  England. 
Elizabeth  of  England  had,  in  consequence,  felt  obliged  to 
support  the  Protestant  party  in  Scotland  against  the  ortho- 
dox party  which  was  backed  by  French  arms.  Philip,  on 
the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  his  zeal  for  the  ancient  Church, 
was  not  at  all  anxious  to  see  the  crowns  of  Scotland,  Eng- 
land and  France  united,  lest  the  combination  should  be  too 
strong  for  him.    He  therefore  had  been  rather  disposed  to 

194 


CATHERINE  DEFENDS  HER  AUTHORITY        195 

stand  by  Elizabeth;  at  all  events  not  to  oppose  her  in 
Scotland.  This  is  undoubtedly  the  explanation  of  the  Guise 
action  during  the  reign  of  Francis  II  which  Catherine  re- 
ported to  her  daughter  as  trying  to  make  her  son  hate  her 
son-in-law  against  all  her  efforts  to  keep  them  good  friends. 

But,  with  the  year  1561,  Philip  began  to  change  his 
attitude  toward  the  factions  of  the  French  court.  He  had 
always  distrusted  the  King  of  Navarre,  perhaps  because  the 
King  of  Navarre  had  made  all  sorts  of  advances  to  him 
amounting  even  to  treason,  and  he  was  now  very  much 
alarmed  at  the  progress  of  heresy  which  made  him  afraid 
that  his  dominion  of  the  Netherlands  would  be  surrounded 
by  three  heretic  kingdoms,  Scotland,  England  and  France. 
He  therefore  began  to  throw  himself  very  heartily  into  the 
plan  which  had  been  suggested  to  him  in  1559  by  the  Duke 
of  Alva  of  making  himself  the  head  of  the  orthodox  Roman 
Catholic  party  in  France.  But  he  was  obliged  to  act  very 
cautiously  in  this  shift  of  alliance  among  the  parties  of  the 
French  court.  The  situation  was  a  very  uncertain  and  dan- 
gerous one  and  his  political  play  must  be  very  subtle  if  it 
would  not  defeat  its  own  object. 

In  the  south,  particularly  in  Guienne,  the  adherents  of 
reform  were  still  acting  with  the  utmost  boldness  in  defiance 
of  the  laws,  openly  establishing  their  own  worship  and 
driving  out  the  orthodox  preachers  in  places  where  they 
were  the  stronger.  Indeed,  before  the  end  of  January  the 
lieutenant  of  Guienne  had  written  to  Catherine  that  it  was 
not  possible  to  stop  the  scandals  and  troubles  about  reUgion 
by  words.  "The  King  must  show  himself  the  strongest." 
This  violence  on  one  side  was  more  than  matched  by  the 
violence  of  orthodox  mobs  in  places  where  the  Reformed, 
although  in  the  minority,  attempted  to  conduct  open  wor- 
ship. For  example,  word  was  sent  to  Catherine  from  Nantes 
in  February  that  somebody  threw  a  stone  through  a  window 
where  preaching  was  going  on  and  a  mob  then  attacked  the 
congregation  on  its  way  home.  Seizing  one  man,  they  were 
about  to  kill  him,  when  a  quick-witted  captain  of  the  royal 


196  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

galleys  saved  him  by  protesting  that  he  was  going  to  take 
him  down  to  the  harbor  to  drown  him.  Two  contemporaries 
wrote:  "Few  cities  in  the  realm  are  free  from  rioting  about 
religion."  "Neither  party  is  willing  to  obey  the  royal  proc- 
lamation forbidding  all  disputes  about  religion  and  all  in- 
juries one  to  the  other  either  by  word  or  deed."  ^ 

Much  as  Philip  might  object  to  the  policy  of  meeting 
such  a  state  of  affairs  by  conciliation,  and  anxious  as  he 
might  be  to  back  now  the  faction  of  the  Guise,  who  were  in 
favor  of  a  policy  of  rigorous  persecution,  he  did  not  dare  to 
oppose  the  authority  of  Catherine  for  fear  it  might  be  re- 
placed, not  by  the  rule  of  the  Guise,  but  by  the  rule  of  the 
King  of  Navarre  backed  by  the  entire  Huguenot  party. 
Events  showed  that  this  fear  was  justified.  Early  in  March 
it  became  evident  that  a  strong  constitutional  objection, 
supported  by  the  Bourbon  and  Montmorency  factions  and 
the  Huguenot  party,  was  to  be  raised  against  her  authority 
with  the  intention  of  replacing  her  as  head  of  the  state  by 
the  King  of  Navarre,  assisted  by  a  royal  council  appointed 
by  the  Estates  General. 

The  Estates  General  must  be  summoned  again,  for  the 
Venetian  Ambassador  wrote  "the  scarcity  of  money  is  so 
great  as  to  be  almost  incredible"  and  Catherine  and  de 
I'Hospital  dared  not  strain  further  the  breaking  bow  of  the 
people's  patience  by  unauthorized  taxes.  In  the  end  of  the 
winter  the  King  ordered  that  delegates  for  the  Estates 
General  to  meet  the  twentieth  of  March,  should  be  elected 
but  not  in  the  ordinary  way.  Each  province  was  to  choose 
three  representatives,  one  for  each  of  the  three  orders  of 
Clergy,  Nobles  and  the  Third  Estate.^ 

A  meeting  of  the  Estates  of  the  City  and  Provostry  of 
Paris  refused  to  give  their  delegates  a  mandate  to  pay  the 
debts  of  the  King  or  to  buy  back  the  royal  domains  "before 
it  was  made  plain  where  so  great  a  debt  as  forty-three 

^  B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  27  f.  27,  268,  287,  306,  308.  Neg.  Tosc.  Ill,  447;  Conde, 
I,  2.  II.  3;  de  la  Ferriere  (3).  qtd..  54. 

»B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  394  f.  38,  45  It.  1721  f.  289  Port.  Font.  297,  f.  34, 
Clairambftult  354  f.  306, 


CATHERINE  DEFENDS  HER  AUTHORITY        197 

millions  of  franca  had  come  from.  It  could  not  have  been 
accumulated  in  twenty  years  if  the  finances  had  been  weU 
administered.  After  restitution  of  the  undue  and  inmiense 
gifts  which  some  have  received  to  the  oppression  of  the 
poor  people,  everybody  will  do  his  duty  and  help  the  King." 
This  recalcitrant  temper  in  the  matter  of  finance  was  bad 
enough  from  Catherine's  point  of  view,  but  something  which 
alarmed  her  very  much  more  remained  behind.  It  is  some- 
what difl&cult  to  establish  the  exact  terms  of  the  resolutions 
that  were  passed.  What  looks  like  the  original  rough  draft 
of  them  has  survived  in  manuscript.  A  subsequent  royal 
letter  to  the  Parlement  of  Paris  assumes  that  these  resolu- 
tions were  not  passed,  for  it  says,  "some  of  the  members 
amused  themselves  by  discussing  the  matter  of  government 
and  administration  of  this  kingdom."  But  the  mere  dis- 
cussion of  propositions  like  the  following  threw  Catherine 
into  an  agony  of  fear.^ 

"The  government  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  King  of 
Navarre,  leaving  to  the  Queen  the  care  of  the  person  of  the  King. 
All  the  house  of  Guise  should  be  not  only  removed  from  the 
councils  of  the  King  but  separated  from  the  company  of  his 
brothers,  and,  in  order  to  make  sure  of  governors  for  those  princes 
whose  sincerity  and  integrity  will  insure  for  them  good  and  pious 
instruction.  Admiral  Coligny  and  President  du  Ferrier  should  be 
appointed  as  governors, 

"All  cardinals,  bishops  and  other  persons  who  have  given  an 
oath  of  allegiance  to  any  other  person  besides  the  King,  should 
be  deprived  of  the  power  to  sit  in  the  royal  council,  even  the 
Cardinal  of  Bourbon"  (second  prince  of  the  blood).  [At  this 
point  another  hand  has  written  in  "unless  he  gives  up  the  red 
hat."] 

"The  Marshal  St.  Andre  shall  not  be  of  the  royal  council  any 
more  and  shall  give  account  of  the  excessive  gifts  which  he 
received  of  the  late  King  Henry. 

"Members  of  the  council  outside  of  the  princes  of  the  blood 
are  the  Constable,  the  three  Marshals  of  France  and  the  Admiral 
and  beyond  that  the  Estates  General  should  give  advice. 

'B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  252,  f.  219,  vol.  27,  f.  349;  Bethune,  8676,  f.  8;  pntd. 
summary  Neg.  Fr.  II,  B.  N.  It.  1723,  f.  20,  Cal.  F.  1661,  p.  42;  A.  N.  K. 
1494,  f .  59. 


198  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

"Everything  done  and  decided  at  Orleans  in  the  matter  of 
government  should  be  revoked  because  done  by  persons  who  had 
no  power  to  act. 

"Before  they  respond  to  what  has  been  proposed  to  them, 
a  legitimate  council  should  be  established  aroimd  the  person  of 
the  King  and  they  give  notice  that  if  anything  is  attempted  or 
ordered  otherwise  than  by  those  who  are  made  members  of  the 
council  by  the  advice  of  the  Estates  General,  they  will  appeal  to 
the  first  meeting  of  the  Estates  General  legitimately  assembled 
on  the  ground  that  such  action  is  null  and  void." 

They  asked  that: 

"The  Chancellor  should  suspend  the  exercise  of  his  oflBce  on 
the  ground  that  he  had  not  been  appointed  by  the  princes  nomi- 
nated to  the  council  by  the  said  Estates,  and  that  all  those  who 
had  conducted  business  of  state  since  the  death  of  Henry  II 
should  give  an  accounting  and  hand  over  the  balances  to  be  used 
in  paying  the  debts  of  the  King."  ^ 

It  is  small  wonder  that  Catherine  was  very  much 
alarmed.  Here  were  requests  and  a  tone  in  making  them 
no  Frenchman  had  ever  heard — a  tone  no  Englishman  was 
to  hear  from  any  Parliament  until  the  next  century.  It 
might  be  supposed  that  this  discussion  and  its  outcome  was 
simply  the  result  of  the  enormous  Montmorency  influence 
in  the  city  of  Paris,  where  about  two  thousand  of  the  chief 
burghers  were  vassals  of  that  house.^  The  Constable  had 
received  huge  sums  from  Catherine's  husband  and  the  omis- 
sion of  his  name  from  the  list  of  those  who  were  to  give  an 
accounting  of  what  they  had  received  from  the  exaggerated 
generosity  of  Henry  II  looks  like  it.  Certainly  Huguenot 
influence  was  behind  these  resolutions,  because  Coligny  was 
nominated  as  one  of  those  who  were  to  have  charge  of  the 
education  of  the  young  King.  But  although  these  influ- 
ences undoubtedly  gave  the  protest  its  form,  events  showed 
that  it  represented  a  feeling,  and  constitutional  ideas  wide- 
spread among  French  nobles. 

*  Summarized  from  B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  27.  f.  344. 

'Le  Livre  des  Marchands,  454.  464,  A.  N.  K.  1494  (62). 


CATHERINE  DEFENDS  HER  AUTHORITY        199 

The  effect  it  had  upon  Catherine  appears  in  a  letter 
written  the  latter  half  of  March,  to  Monsieur  d'Estampes 
in  regard  to  the  meeting  of  the  provincial  Estates  of  Brit- 
tany. 

"My  Cousin:  Knowing  that  you  are  now  engaged  in  closing 
up  the  Estates,  where  I  do  not  doubt  you  have  much  to  do  to 
bring  about  results  necessary  for  the  establishment  of  my  author- 
ity and  at  the  same  time  for  stopping  the  practices  of  those  who 
are  opposed  to  it,  I  want  to  advertise  you  of  what  has  happened 
at  Paris,  both  in  the  meeting  of  the  Third  Estate  and  in  that  of 
the  nobility.  .  .  .  They  disavowed  all  that  was  done  at  Orleans, 
on  the  ground  that  those  who  made  that  arrangement  had  no 
power  from  their  constituents,  and  went  on  from  that  to  elect 
a  Governor  of  the  realm,  who  is  the  King  of  Navarre.  .  .  .  You 
can  think,  my  cousin  .  .  .  what  shame  and  dishonor  is  done  to 
me,  to  see  myself  deprived  and  dispossessed  of  that  which  was 
accorded  me.  ...  I  have  firmly  determined  rather  than  accept 
such  a  thing  to  endure  poverty  and  I  prefer,  if  they  are  going  to 
take  my  honor,  that  they  should  take  my  life  with  it.  And 
because  I  am  unwilling  to  believe  that  in  all  parts  of  this  king- 
dom the  inclination  is  so  strong  for  the  party  of  those  who  wish 
to  injure  me  as  it  has  been  in  this  small  number  of  little  burghers, 
I  am  not  willing  to  accept  as  much  evil  treatment  from  all  parts 
as  I  have  endured  from  Paris.  In  order  to  prevent  this,  I  beg  you, 
my  cousin,  in  the  name  of  all  you  have  always  done  for  me  and 
.  .  .  the  friendship  which  you  know  that  I  have  for  you  . .  .  prove 
to  me  the  fidelity  you  have  toward  me  by  preventing  that  diminu- 
tion of  authority  and  confirming  what  has  been  accorded  to  me 
by  the  Estates  of  Orleans.  In  which  matter  I  beg  you  to  omit 
nothing  and  do  not  fail  to  send  me  word  at  once  of  anything  you 
may  do  and  of  what  has  happened;  and  above  all  give  me  in- 
formation if  the  written  instructions  for  carrying  on  the  con- 
spiracy which  have  been  sent  everywhere  throughout  the  king- 
dom, have  yet  been  sent  to  you."  ^ 

Catherine  was  fully  aware  that  only  great  caution  could 

avoid  civil  war.    She  did  not  want  civil  war  at  all.    She  was 

certainly  too  shrewd  to  enter  upon  it  backed  only  by  the 

Guise  and  foreign  arms.    She  saw  that  again  the  chief  piece 

in  the  game  was  the  King  of  Navarre,  the  first  prince  of  the 

*  Letts.  I,  173  (misdated),  Comp.  B.  N.  Bethune,  8697,  £.  1  C.  C.  C. 
27,  f.  314. 


200  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

blood,  under  whose  name  and  authority  all  elements  of  a 
somewhat  diverse  and  varied  opposition  were  united.  By- 
means  of  the  wife  of  the  Duke  of  Montpensier,  she  arranged 
a  compromise  with  him.  She  signed  an  agreement  to  make 
him  Lieutenant-General  "as  Monsieur  de  Guise  was  under 
the  late  King."  "To  do  nothing  without  communicating 
with  him"  and  that  "he  should  be  named  in  every  letter 
where  she  was  named."  Letters  from  the  Crown,  from  the 
King  of  Navarre  and  from  Catherine  setting  forth  the  per- 
fect accord  which  had  now  been  established  in  the  matter 
of  the  government,  were  at  once  sent  to  the  Parlement  of 
Paris  and  also  published  throughout  the  kingdom.  Cath- 
erine wrote  saying  that  this  accord  left  the  victory  with  her 
because  "The  King  of  Navarre  consents  that  I  should  com- 
mand absolutely  everjrwhere  without  his  ever  being  able  to 
give  me  any  trouble  or  hindrance.  I  still  hold  therefore 
the  principal  authority."  How  much  of  this  entire  satis- 
faction with  the  outcome  was  assumed  in  order  to  impress 
her  son-in-law,  is  difficult  to  say.  At  all  events,  the  Ambas- 
sadors of  Venice  and  Spain  thought  that  Catherine  had 
restricted  herself  to  dependence  upon  others  and  was  in 
danger  of  coming  by  degrees  to  have  nothing  but  the  care 
of  the  person  of  the  King  and  "God  grant  that  she  can  still 
maintain  herself  in  that."  The  English  Ambassador,  who 
was  prejudiced  on  the  other  side,  thought  that  Navarre  had 
"agreed  out  of  weak  courage."  ^ 

What  Catherine  really  thought  about  the  cause  of  all 
this  trouble  we  can  see  in  the  letter  she  wrote  with  her  own 
hand  to  her  daughter,  the  Queen  of  Spain: 

"I  want  to  tell  you  plainly  what  is  the  truth,  that  all  this 
trouble  has  been  for  no  other  cause  except  for  the  hate  which 
this  entire  realm  has  for  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  Duke 
of  Guise,  because  they  thought  that  I  wanted  to  put  the  govern- 
ment of  this  kingdom  again  into  their  hands;  which  I  have  assm-ed 
them  is  not  true,  because  I  was  under  no  obligation  to  do  it, 
because  you  know  how  they  treated  me  during  the  time  of  the 

*B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6620,  f.  110,  3159,  f.  8;  A.  N.  K.  1494.  Letts.  X,  32; 
I,  177,  180;  B.  N.  It.  1732.  f.  32. 


CATHERINE  DEFENDS  HER  AUTHORITY       201 

late  King,  your  brother.  So  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  look 
to  the  safety  of  your  brothers  and  my  own  safety  and  not  to 
mix  any  longer  their  quarrels  with  mine,  because,  if  they  had 
been  able  to  do  it,  they  would  have  appointed  themselves  to 
power  and  would  have  left  me  to  one  side,  as  they  always  do 
everything  which  can  bring  them  any  grandeur  and  profit  because 
they  have  nothing  else  but  that  in  their  hearts.  I  want  to  tell 
you  all  this  detail  in  order  that  if,  for  the  purpose  of  strengthen- 
ing themselves  by  the  support  of  the  King,  your  husband,  they 
send  something  secretly  to  make  him  believe  that  they  have  been 
put  out  of  power  because  of  religion  .  .  .  you  can  tell  him  the 
truth.  The  reason  why  they  are  disliked  is  because  of  the  wrongs 
(sottises)  which  they  have  done  to  all  the  world,  trying  to  make 
people  believe  that  I  was  not  a  good  Christian  in  order  to  bring 
me  into  suspicion  in  the  minds  of  everyone  and  saying  that  it 
was  because  I  wasn't  a  good  Christian  that  I  didn't  trust  them, 
telling  me  on  the  other  hand  that  everybody  was  opposed  to  me 
and  that  without  them  I  could  not  possibly  remain  in  the  author- 
ity where  I  am.  And  now  that  they  see  that  I  have  come  to 
know  the  truth,  just  the  contrary  to  all  that  which  they  had 
told  me,  and  that  I  wasn't  hated  except  because  I  was  supposed 
to  like  them,  they  are  astonished."  ^ 

However  sure  Catherine  felt  herself,  or  pretended  to 
feel  herself,  after  this  quick  shift  of  the  pieces  in  the  game 
of  court  intrigue,  she  had  no  wish  to  see  the  representatives 
of  the  provinces  meet  in  their  new  mood.  She  cared  little 
for  theories  of  government,  constitutional  or  otherwise.  The 
assertion  of  a  constitutional  or  democratic  theory  of  gov- 
ernment seemed  to  her,  not  something  to  be  intellectually 
discussed,  but  something  like  the  appearance  of  a  mental 
disease — an  outbreak  of  contagious  fever.  But  although 
she  cared  little  for  theories  of  government,  she  was  glad  to 
use  certain  phases  that  might  help  to  gain  her  ends.  Word 
was  sent  to  the  provincial  Estates  that  they  had  no  power 
to  discuss  government,  but  only  the  means  of  paying  the 
King's  debts.  The  provincial  Estates  were  therefore  called 
to  meet  again  in  June  because  "for  most  of  the  provinces 
the  assembly  which  had  been  made  was  illegitimate."  ^ 

*  Letts.  I,  592. 
*B.  N.  Bethune,  8676,  f.  8. 


202  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Under  these  circumstances  Philip  felt  that  the  best  thing 
to  do  was  to  give  Catherine  his  full  support.  He  wrote 
telling  her  "she  might  count  on  him  as  she  could  on  her  own 
son"  and  did  exactly  what  she  asked  him  to  do  through  her 
ambassador.  He  sent  letters  to  the  chief  personages  of  the 
French  court,  the  Cardinals  of  Tournon,  Lorraine  and  Bour- 
bon, the  Constable,  the  Duke  of  Guise,  the  Duke  of  Mont- 
pensier  and  his  wife,  and  Marshals  St.  Andre  and  Brissac, 
thanking  them  for  the  efforts  they  had  made  to  "sustain 
the  authority  of  the  Queen,  my  mother,"  and  begging  them 
to  continue  such  efforts  whenever  it  might  be  necessary. 
Six  similar  letters  were  sent  in  blank  to  be  addressed  as 
Catherine  preferred.  Even  before  these  letters  could  arrive, 
events  seemed  to  confirm  the  Queen's  contentment  in  the 
new  arrangement  of  the  government.  In  spite  of  his  previ- 
ous opinion  the  Venetian  Ambassador  reported  on  the  18th 
of  April  "there  never  has  been  such  quiet  and  union  at 
court.  The  King  of  Navarre  recognizes  the  Queen  Mother 
as  his  superior  more  than  ever."  ^ 

But  though  peace  prevailed  for  a  time  in  the  palace,  it 
did  not  reign  throughout  the  kingdom.  Difference  of  opin- 
ion about  reUgion  continued  to  make  very  serious  and 
widespread  trouble.  The  Admiral  Coligny  had  public 
preachings  in  his  house  which  were  attended  by  large  num- 
bers of  people,  to  the  great  scandal  of  the  orthodox.  This 
ill-feeling  finally  broke  out  in  a  violent  dispute  in  the  royal 
council  between  the  Admiral  and  the  Cardinal  of  Tournon. 
The  Admiral  said  he  had  as  much  right  to  have  a  preacher 
in  his  house  as  the  Cardinal  of  Tournon  to  have  a  preacher 
in  his.  The  Cardinal  replied  that  the  Admiral's  preacher 
was  excommunicated  and  that  the  houses  where  such  ser- 
mons were  heard  ought  to  be  burnt.  The  Admiral  resented 
this  and  the  quarrel  was  only  appeased  by  the  intervention 
of  the  Constable.  Finally  the  Queen  and  his  uncle  the 
Constable  sternly  reproved  the  Admiral  for  his  conduct  and 
henceforth  he  held  the  meetings  somewhat  more  secretly, 

*A.  N.  K.  1495  f.  23,  30.    B.  N.  It.  1723  f.  278. 


CATHERINE  DEFENDS  HER  AUTHORITY       203 

but  the  Prince  of  Conde  continued  to  have  preaching  in  his 
rooms  in  the  palace,  not  far  from  the  rooms  of  the  King. 
About  this  time  Coligny's  brother,  the  Cardinal  of  Chatillon, 
who  although  he  stiU  retained  his  rank  of  Cardinal,  was 
known  to  be  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the  heretics, 
nearly  lost  his  life  in  his  own  cathedral  city  of  Beauvais. 
He  rescued  a  Protestant  preacher  from  a  mob  who  were 
about  to  kill  him  and  took  him  into  his  house.  The  house 
was  then  stormed  by  the  people,  some  of  its  defenders  were 
killed,  the  preacher  was  dragged  out  and  burnt  in  the 
market-place  and  it  was  only  by  hiding  that  the  Bishop  was 
able  to  escape  from  the  fury  of  the  mob.  In  Paris  a  man 
was  killed  because  he  interrupted  the  sermon  and  criticized 
the  preacher  when  he  said  that  heretics  ought  to  be  kiUed. 
Near  Lyons  a  mob  seized  a  preacher,  cut  off  his  nose  and 
ears  and  hands  and  hung  him.  In  May,  1561,  Calvin  wrote 
to  Beza,  "In  twenty  cities,  or  about  that  number,  the  godly 
have  been  slaughtered  by  raging  mobs.  In  only  one  has 
there  been  judicial  action  by  magistrates."  ^ 

Orthodox  observers  were  not  so  much  impressed  by 
these  murders  as  by  the  spread  of  heresy  and  the  violence 
of  its  adherents,  who  defied  the  law  by  holding  public 
worship  and  even  by  suppressing  Catholic  worship  where 
they  were  strong  enough  to  do  so.  The  Venetian  Ambassa- 
dor wrote  in  the  middle  of  April:  "The  provinces,  begin- 
ning with  Normandy,  passing  through  Brittany  and 
Guienne  as  far  as  Provence,  are  openly  professing  this  new 
religion  and  in  the  rest  of  the  kingdom,  although  the  com- 
mon people  appear  in  many  places  to  be  still  Catholic,  as 
they  are  here  in  Paris,  nevertheless,  the  nobility  are  all,  or 
the  major  part  of  them,  infected.  In  court,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Queen,  the  Constable,  the  Duke  of  Montpensier, 
the  Duke  of  Guise  and  a  few  others,  all  the  rest  of  the 
grandees,  and  the  women  no  less  than  the  men,  either  are 
of  this  new  sect  or  else  are  of  no  sect."  So  far  did  the  dis- 
order go  that  he  finally  wrote  home:  "This  once  flourishing 

*B.  N.  It.  1721,  £.  273,  276,  A.  N.  K.  1494  ib.  f.  71,  Baum  pntd.  App.  32. 


204  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

kingdom  has  become  so  weak  that  its  friends  have  nothing 
to  hope  or  its  enemies  to  fear  from  it."  ^ 

In  this  difficult  position  between  a  party  anxious  to 
persecute,  whose  fanatical  adherents  were  able  to  act  against 
the  law  through  blood-thirsty  mobs,  and  a  party  whose 
more  extreme  members  were  entirely  unwilling  to  accept 
mere  toleration  and  were  apt  to  riot  against  legal  worship 
wherever  they  were  the  stronger,  Catherine  tried  to  follow 
a  line  of  conduct  shown  in  the  following  letter  to  the  royal 
prosecutor: 

"I  have  seen  by  your  letter  of  the  22d  of  this  month  that  you 
are  in  trouble  to  know  what  response  you  should  make  to  those 
who  write  to  you  in  regard  to  illegal  assemblies  and  also  in  regard 
to  the  sedition  which  may  follow  them.  You  should  not  fail  to 
answer  that  the  edicts  and  ordinances  made  about  this  matter 
regulate  it  and  that  they  should  follow  them  .  .  .  without  too 
curiously  seeking  out  those  who  may  be  in  their  own  houses, 
nor  too  exactly  inquiring  what  they  are  doing  there.  I  have  sent 
the  Marshal  Montmorency  to  Paris  to  take  steps  about  the 
sedition  which  has  happened  there  and  to  inflict  upon  the  leaders 
and  authors  of  riots,  without  regard  to  their  rank  or  their  religion, 
such  a  stiff  punishment  that  the  others  may  take  warning  from 
it." 

How  serious  she  thought  the  situation  is  indicated  by  a 
letter  which  she  wrote  about  the  same  time  to  her  Ambassa- 
dor with  the  Emperor. 

"I  have  advised  with  my  brother,  the  King  of  Navarre,  and 
the  other  princes  of  the  blood  and  the  privy  council  of  the  King 
my  son,  and  after  having  tried  various  means,  at  one  time  rigor 
and  severity  and  at  another  time  gentleness  and  clemency,  I 
am  convinced  there  is  no  better  expedient  to  remedy  our  troubles 
than  to  assemble  a  national  council  of  the  Chiuch  to  consider 
what  ought  to  be  done  in  regard  to  religion,  .  .  .  because  so  far 
as  thinking  it  possible  to  retain  this  people  in  obedience  and 
concord  while  their  spirits  are  so  agitated  and  occupied  by 
diversities  of  opinion  and  of  doctrines,  there  is  no  one  in  the 
world  who  does  not  judge  it  impossible."  * 

*B.  N.  It.  1723.  f.  24.  25. 
•Letts.  I,  193. 


CATHERINE  DEFENDS  HER  AUTHORITY        205 

The  idea  Catherine  here  expresses,  that  it  was  impossible 
to  allow  diversities  of  religion  in  a  state,  was  a  common- 
place of  contemporary  political  opinion  which  is  to  be  found 
in  various  epigrammatic  forms  such  as:  "A  new  religion 
means  a  new  Monarch" ;  "Two  kings  follow  two  religions" ; 
"Diversity  of  faith  has  always  put  arms  into  subjects' 
hands."  ^  There  were  no  rulers  and  practically  no  political 
thinkers  then  alive,  who  would  not  have  agreed  with  the 
opinion  in  regard  to  the  toleration  of  dissenting  worship 
which  Michiele  Soriano  expressed  in  the  Venetian  Senate 
on  his  return  from  the  mission  to  Spain  in  1559.  "Hence 
proceeds  change  of  faith,  the  greatest  revolution  which  can 
take  place  in  a  realm,  because,  besides  the  offense  which  is 
done  our  Lord  God,  there  follows  a  revolution  of  customs, 
laws,  obedience,  finally  of  the  state  itself;  as  it  can  be  seen 
has  happened  in  Asia,  in  Africa,  in  Greece  and  in  a  great 
part  of  Europe."  ^ 

*  Brant.,  IV,  294.    Arch.  C.  22.    DavUa,  I,  243. 
»Rel.  I,  3,  p.  359. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FORMING  FACTIONS.     THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE, 
WHO  FAVORS  THEM 

Although  Catherine  had  put  the  administration  of 
affairs  of  state  into  the  hands  of  the  Bourbon-Montmorency 
faction,  she  had  not  paid  any  attention  to  the  demand  made 
by  the  Estates  of  Paris  that  those  of  the  house  of  Guise 
and  all  those  who  had  been  advanced  by  their  influence, 
should  be  removed  from  the  person  and  councils  of  the 
King.  But  in  refusing  to  allow  the  Bourbon-Montmorency 
and  those  who  followed  them  to  drive  the  Guise  entirely 
from  court,  she  had  kept  in  the  game  players  quite  capable 
of  meeting  her  most  skilful  plays.  Early  in  April,  Guise 
made  it  evident  that  he  had  broken  the  Bourbon-Mont- 
morency combination  and  was  himself  the  center  of  a  new 
combination,  which  came  to  be  called  the  Triumvirate. 
The  Triumvirate  can  best  be  defined  in  small  space  by 
borrowing  a  term  from  American  politics.  It  was  what  is 
there  called  "a  gentleman's  agreement."  Its  existence  was 
rather  ostentatiously  made  known.  The  Spanish  Ambassa- 
dor reported  on  April  7th,  1561,  that  Guise,  the  Constable, 
Marshal  St.  Andre,  the  Duke  of  Montpensier  (son  of  the 
King's  tutor),  the  Prince  de  la  Roche-Sur-Yon  and  the 
Cardinal  of  Tournon,  took  supper  with  the  Constable  after 
a  solemn  mass.  "They  bound  themselves  together  and 
promised  to  seek,  with  a  single  zeal  and  one  will,  the  remedy 
for  the  affairs  of  religion."  ^ 

Guise  had  split  up  the  opposite  faction.  He  had  broken 
the  Montmorency  from  the  Chatillons;  he  had  separated 
the  elder  Bourbons  from  some  of  the  other  princes  of  the 

*A.  N.  K.  1494,  B.  12,  73,  76,  qtd.  Decnie  (2),  303,  Croee  9,  App., 
Bouille,  n,  Ch.  3. 

ao6 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE       207 

blood,  and  his  skilful  manipulation  had  made  it  evident 
that  the  chief  line  of  cleavage  for  the  civil  war  feared  ever 
since  the  death  of  Henry  II,  would  be  on  religion  and  not 
on  politics  or  family  jealousies.  It  is  a  proof  of  his  political 
aptitude  that  the  line  of  cleavage  remained  on  the  whole 
where  he  made  it  in  1561  until  the  formation  of  the  Poli- 
tique party  after  1572. 

Guise  had  carried  out  this  great  stroke  by  gaining  the 
Constable  and  he  had  gained  the  Constable  through  his 
religious  feelings.  The  stern  old  warrior  and  crafty  courtier 
was  intensely  orthodox  and  he  had  determined  rather  than 
accept  complete  victory  over  his  old  enemies  by  the  aid  of 
heresy,  to  go  over  entirely  to  their  side.  In  vain  had  his 
nephew  the  Admiral  and  his  oldest  son,  the  Marshal  Mont- 
morency, combated  this  resolution  and  begged  him  not  to 
abandon  so  many  members  of  his  family  and  faithful 
servitors  of  his  house.  The  Constable  insisted,  to  the  great 
joy  of  his  wife,  in  acting  in  accord  with  his  understanding 
of  the  ancient  device  of  the  arms  of  Montmorency,  "God 
aids  the  first  Christian."  ^ 

The  powerful  Guise-Montmorency-orthodox  combina- 
tion was  made  still  stronger  because  it  had  the  real  sym- 
pathy of  the  King  of  Spain.  Although  Philip  felt  bound  to 
act  in  support  of  the  authority  of  the  Queen  Mother,  be- 
cause he  was  afraid  that  if  he  did  not  the  younger-Bourbon, 
younger-Montmorency-heretic  combination,  might  get  con- 
trol of  the  state,  he  did  not  at  all  like  her  policy  of  concilia- 
tion and  accepted  it  only  under  protest.  Guise  began  to  use 
this  influence  with  Spain  as  a  lure  to  draw  into  his  camp 
the  King  of  Navarre,  whose  older  brother,  the  Cardinal  of 
Bourbon,  was  already  strongly  inclined  to  sympathize 
with  the  Triumvirate  because  of  the  question  of  religion. 
Navarre  had  no  real  convictions  in  regard  to  heresy  or 
orthodoxy.  He  cared  for  nothing  except  a  chance  to  get 
back  trans-pyrenean  Navarre  from  Spain,  or  to  replace  it 
by  some  other  kingdom;  for  he  had  a  desire  to  rule  which 

*  La  Place.  183. 


208  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

was  as  strong  as  his  ability  for  ruling  was  weak.  He  was 
therefore  irresolute,  now  inclined  toward  orthodoxy  with 
the  Guise,  the  older  Bourbon  and  the  older  Montmorency, 
now  backsliding  toward  heresy  with  his  younger  brother 
Conde  and  the  young  Montmorency-Chatillons,  but  stand- 
ing on  the  whole  pretty  steadily  by  the  Queen  Mother, 
whose  influence  with  her  son-in-law  the  King  of  Spain  he 
still  thought  stronger  than  that  of  the  Guise. 

Catherine  had  not  been  very  much  alarmed  by  the  for- 
mation of  the  Triumvirate.  They  spent  most  of  their  time 
away  from  the  court  and  she  felt,  as  she  wrote  to  the 
Ambassador  at  Madrid  toward  the  end  of  April,  "I  cannot 
say  that  there  is  nothing  to  be  deplored  in  this  kingdom 
nor  on  the  other  hand  that  I  lack  power  to  make  all  things 
go  as  they  ought  to  go,  and  I  cannot  feel  that  my  son  the 
King  ought  to  be  afraid  that  anything  may  happen  which 
would  anger  him  so  long  as  I  hold,  as  I  do,  the  two  ends  of 
the  strap."  ^ 

She  was  well  aware,  however,  that  the  Guise  were  trying 
to  use  Spain  to  increase  their  power.  One  thing  they  were 
trying  to  arrange  was  the  marriage  of  their  niece,  the  widow 
of  Francis  II,  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  to  Don  Carlos,  the  heir 
of  the  Spanish  throne.  Catherine  disliked  Mary,  she  hated 
the  Guise,  she  wanted  very  much  to  marry  her  youngest 
daughter  Margaret  to  Don  Carlos.  So  her  letters  to  Spain 
during  the  spring  were  filled  with  references  to  "the  gentle- 
man," which  was  her  disguise  for  the  name  of  Mary.  She 
expresses  herself  most  freely  to  her  daughter,  writing  that  if 
it  is  not  possible  to  bring  about  the  marriage  of  the  prince 
and  her  sister,  she  ought  to  do  all  she  can  to  arrange  a  mar- 
riage between  the  Prince  of  Spain  and  his  aunt,  the  Princess 
of  Portugal.  Catherine  urges  her  daughter  to  be  sure  to  tell 
the  Princess  of  Portugal  that  she  would  very  much  prefer 
the  marriage  to  her  brother,  the  King  of  France,  and  that 
the  Prince  of  Spain  should  marry  her  little  sister  Margaret. 
But  since  that  seems  impossible,  she  is  anxious  to  see  the 

*  Letts.  I,  191. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE       209 

Princess  of  Portugal  reach  the  highest  possible  rank  and 
make  a  marriage  which  will  keep  them  together  all  their 
lives.  This  line  of  conduct,  Catherine  points  out,  will  have 
the  double  advantage  of  making  a  close  friend  of  the  Prin- 
cess of  Portugal  and  blocking  the  marriage  of  her  sister-in- 
law  Mary  to  Don  Carlos.^ 

Another  thing  which  Catherine  desired  to  prevent  was 
the  Guise  plan  for  gaining  the  King  of  Navarre.  She  kept 
writing  therefore  to  the  Ambassador  and  to  her  daughter,  to 
urge  the  King  of  Spain  either  to  return  Navarre  to  the 
King  of  Navarre,  or  to  give  him  an  equivalent  "something 
which  isn't  of  importance  to  him,  like  Sardinia,  or  a  new 
principality  to  be  erected  in  Sienna."  This  latter  plan  had 
for  Catherine  the  additional  attraction  of  weakening  the 
power  of  her  distant  cousin,  Cosimo,  the  Duke  of  Florence, 
whom  she  always  disliked,  although  she  remained  on  very 
flattering  terms  with  him.  She  put  the  real  meaning  of  this 
manoeuvre  about  the  King  of  Navarre  in  the  postscript  in 
her  own  hand  to  a  letter  to  the  Ambassador  she  had  dic- 
tated ;  for  ,she  was  not  unlike  other  women  in  her  choice  of 
the  place  to  put  the  most  important  news  in  her  letters. 

"Although  the  King  of  Navarre  puts  on  a  good  appearance 
of  loving  me,  nevertheless  I  should  be  very  glad  if  he  could  have 
his  kingdom  because,  if  he  stays  here,  after  getting  it,  he  would 
then  feel  obliged  to  me  and  act  even  more  in  my  interests  and, 
if  he  should  go  away  to  rule  it,  still  better,  because  he  wouldn't 
trouble  me  any  more  here  and  there  he  might  be  of  some  use,  in 
some  way,  to  one  of  my  children.  You  know  without  being  told 
that  you  mustn't  say  this  to  the  King  when  you  are  urging  him 
to  do  it;  but  I  tell  you  my  whole  design  in  order  that  you  may  the 
more  readily  employ  all  possible  means  to  arrive  at  the  end  I 
seek."  * 

On  the  15th  of  May  the  little  King  of  France  was 
crowned  at  Rheims.  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  had 
consecrated  his  brother  and  his  father,  touched  him  with 

*  Letts.  I,  591. 
'Letts.  I,  184,  596. 


210  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

the  sacred  oil  and  years  later,  when  he  delivered  the  funeral 
oration  for  Charles  IX,  he  recalled  how  the  little  boy,  worn 
out  by  the  five  hours  of  the  ceremony,  had  begun  to  cry, 
and  when  they  asked  why,  said  "The  crown  is  too  heavy."  ^ 

On  their  way  to  Rheims,  Catherine  and  the  King  had 
visited  the  Duke  of  Guise.  The  Queen  asked  him  if  it  was 
true  that  he  had  made  a  league  to  support  religion,  the  King 
and  her  authority.  Guise  answered  yes.  Catherine  then 
asked,  "If  she  and  her  son  should  adopt  the  new  religion," 
which  she  hastened  to  add  with  emphasis,  "they  had  no 
thought  of  doing — would  he  and  his  confederates  renounce 
their  allegiance?"  Guise  answered,  "Yes,  although  as  long 
as  they  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  their  predecessors  he 
was  ready  to  die  in  their  service."  She  was  soon  to  have 
other  signs  of  the  effects  of  the  opposition  to  her  policy  of 
concession  and  conciliation  toward  the  Reformed  churches. 
The  King  of  Navarre  quite  openly  went  over  to  the  Trium- 
virate; evidently  influenced  by  conversations  with  the  Span- 
ish Ambassador  in  which  it  was  hinted  that  he  never  could 
get  back  his  kingdom  by  force,  but  might  by  an  agreement 
to  keep  France  Roman  Catholic.  Encouraged  by  his  pro- 
tection, the  straight  out  orthodox  party  began  decidedly  to 
raise  its  head.  The  Parlement  of  Paris  protested  against 
the  toleration  of  heretics,  and  the  Sorbonne,  the  theological 
faculty  of  the  University  of  Paris,  declared  they  never  would 
consent  to  the  kingdom  becoming  heretic.^ 

When  the  King  issued  on  the  19th  of  April,  an  edict 
which  denounced  the  "penalty  of  the  gallows  without  hope 
of  pardon  against  all  who  were  the  cause  of  division  among 
the  subjects  of  the  King  on  the  subject  of  religion,"  includ- 
ing those  who  by  use  of  "the  words  Papist  and  Huguenot 
and  similar  expressions  caused  irritation,"  the  Parlement  of 
Paris  refused  to  register  it.  The  Spanish  Ambassador  wrote 
a  long  letter  protesting  against  it  and  in  a  very  forcible 
private  interview  pointed  out  to  Catherine  the  trouble  that 

*Bouille,  II,  557. 

'Sp.  Amb.  qtd.  BouUle,  II,  136.    B.  N.  It.  1723  f.  26,  1721  f.  298. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE       211 

would  come  on  the  kingdom  "from  trying  to  maintain  an 
equal  balance  between  the  Catholics  and  heretics,  because 
the  heretics  were  increasing  every  day  by  such  tolerance."  ^ 

The  difficulty  in  carrying  out  any  such  edict  is  very  well 
illustrated  by  a  letter  written  to  Catherine  by  the  Bishop  of 
Mans  excusing  the  people  for  what,  on  his  own  showing, 
was  a  very  bad  riot  in  which  a  Huguenot  had  been  killed  by 
a  mob  attacking  a  heretic  congregation  returning  from  wor- 
ship in  the  suburbs.  He  said  the  dead  man  was  such  a 
worthless  character  that  his  own  mother  disowned  him; 
the  last  part  of  which  was  probably  quite  true  because  the 
hatred  between  orthodox  and  heretic  was  so  great  that  it 
often  destroyed  family  affection.  The  people  had  only  acted 
out  of  zeal  for  the  Church  and  because  the  judges  were  so 
lax  in  punishing  heretics.  "The  only  way  to  keep  this  city 
in  peace  and  union  is  to  pardon  the  offense.  Then  the  ad- 
versaries of  the  Church  .  .  .  seeing  that  the  King  does  not 
avenge  their  injuries,  will  bear  themselves  less  insolently 
than  they  have;  otherwise  they  will  become  too  much  puffed 
up  and  insupportable."  ^ 

On  the  other  hand,  letters  addressed  to  her  called  for 
the  punishment  of  "false  prophets  whose  false  doctrines 
poison  souls"  (the  Roman  Catholic  preachers).  These  let- 
ters reminded  the  King,  who  had  always  loved  Bible  stories, 
of  the  young  King  Josias  who  had  cleansed  the  land  of  idols 
and  the  writers  changed  his  name,  Charles  de  Valois,  into 
the  anagram,  "Va  Chasser  I'idole."  Situated  between  a  fac- 
tion who  refused  to  agree  that  persecution  should  be 
stopped,  and  a  faction  whose  extreme  members  scornfully 
refused  to  be  satisfied  with  toleration,  Catherine  continued 
as  best  she  could  her  policy  of  conciliation.^ 

The  new  party  of  strict  orthodoxy  and  persecution  were 
playing  a  waiting  game.  For  about  two  months  its  leaders 
had  been  nearly  always  absent  from  court.    Meanwhile 

*Conde,  II,  334.    A.  N.  K.  1494, 

'Conde,  II,  340. 

"  Conde,  II,  216,  222,  229,  251,  427, 


212  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

there  were  "riots  all  over  the  kingdom,"  and  what  the 
Spanish  Ambassador  called  "great  insolence  on  the  part  of 
the  heretics."  He  became  more  and  more  insistent  with  the 
Queen  Mother  that  she  should  abandon  the  policy  of  con- 
ciliation, in  particular  that  she  should  remove  from  the 
council  Admiral  Coligny  and  his  brother,  the  Cardinal  of 
Chatillon.  The  Queen  refused  to  do  this,  saying  that  it 
would  appear  to  be  done  by  the  influence  of  the  Guise  and 
would  re-awaken  all  the  old  hatred  against  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  "if  it  came  to  be  understood  that  it  was  done  by 
the  advice  of  the  Spanish  King  or  any  other  foreign  prince, 
it  would  ruin  her  influence."  That  she  judged  correctly  this 
general  dislike  of  foreign  dictation  is  shown  by  the  fate  of  a 
certain  priest  who  was  arrested  carrying  a  request  to  the 
King  of  Spain  to  intervene  in  France  against  the  Protes- 
tants because  they  were  too  strong  for  the  young  King. 
The  very  Parlement  of  Paris  which  was  protesting  against 
the  policy  of  conciliation,  condemned  him  to  kneel  in  public 
with  his  head  and  feet  bare  to  demand  pardon  of  the  King, 
the  realm  and  the  Parlement,  while  his  petition  to  the  King 
of  Spain  was  torn  up  in  his  presence.* 

In  view  of  the  dangerous  situation,  a  special  meeting  of 
the  Parlement  of  Paris  was  called  in  the  presence  of  the 
King,  the  princes  of  the  blood  and  the  royal  council,  in 
order  to  deliberate  about  what  was  to  be  done  in  regard  to 
religion.  The  conclusion  was  finally  reached  by  a  majority 
of  three  that,  until  the  meeting  of  a  general  council  of 
the  Church,  cognizance  of  the  crime  of  heresy  should  be 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  ecclesiastical  courts;  but  those 
who  were  found  guilty  and  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm 
for  punishment  could  receive  no  greater  sentence  than  ban- 
ishment. 

The  Admiral  and  his  friends  were  highly  indignant  over 
the  result;  but  Guise,  on  the  contrary,  declared  that  his 
sword  would  never  rest  in  his  scabbard  if  it  were  necessary 
to  enforce  this  edict.    Catherine  said  nothing,  but  she  had 

*A.  N.  K.  1406  f.  49;  De  Thou,  m,  80. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE       213 

all  tlie  written  expressions  of  opinion  brought  to  her  and 
burnt  in  her  presence  so  that  "they  might  not  afterwards  be 
used  to  anyone's  hurt."  When  the  edict  announcing  this 
decision  appeared  (the  so-called  Edict  of  July)  both  sides 
began  to  make  trouble  about  it.  The  orthodox  accused  the 
Chancellor  of  having  put  in  the  phrase  "Catholic  Religion" 
instead  of  "Religion  of  the  Roman  Church,"  objected  to  the 
slight  penalty  inflicted  on  heresy  and  were  angered  at  the 
implied  hope  that,  at  the  meeting  of  a  general  council  of 
the  Church,  more  favorable  terms  might  be  obtained  by  the 
Huguenots.  Some  of  the  Reformed,  on  the  other  hand, 
demanded  its  revocation,  although  the  Spanish  Ambassador 
wrote:  "It  doesn't  hurt  them  very  much,  because  it  is  so 
weakly  enforced."  ^ 

There  was  a  cause  for  this  laxity  of  which  he  knew 
nothing;  for  the  Spanish  Ambassador  was  never  on  the  in- 
side of  what  went  on  at  court  except  in  the  secret  councils 
of  the  extreme  orthodox  faction.  Catherine  evidently  did 
not  like  the  edict  and  she  sent  out  written  secret  instructions 
to  the  magistrates  which  so  pleased  Merlin,  the  most  influ- 
ential of  the  Calvinist  ministers  in  France,  that  he  wrote  a 
circular  letter  to  all  the  churches,  telling  them  that  the 
prohibition  of  assemblies  in  the  edict  soon  to  be  published 
did  not  really  mean  there  could  be  no  preaching;  for 
small,  quiet  congregations  would  be  allowed  by  the  magis- 
trates. Theodore  Beza,  Professor  of  Theology  at  the  Acad- 
emy of  Geneva,  who  had  become  Calvin's  right  hand  man, 
was  in  France  for  the  conference  of  theologians  which  Cath- 
erine had  arranged.  He  wrote  to  Calvin  that  "by  the  ex- 
press orders  of  the  Queen  Mother"  he  was  sending  word  to 
"our  people"  that  they  would  be  allowed  to  worship  quietly 
in  stated  places  and  the  governors  would  protect  them.  He 
blames  highly  the  unbridled  zeal  of  some  of  their  followers. 
To  this  letter  Calvin  replied  (Nov.  19th,  1561) : 

"What  you  write  about  the  preposterous  zeal  of  our  brethren 
is  «xceedingly  true.    Everywhere  I  proclaim  to  them  that,  if  I 

*De  Thou,  III,  54;  Paaquier  (2),  Bk.  IV,  L.  10.    A.  N.  K.  1495  f.  62. 


214  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

were  a  judge,  I  should  punish  not  less  severely  these  furious 
attacks  than  the  King  does  by  his  edicts.  .  .  ,  Nothing  could  be 
more  equitable  than  the  letter  you  have  obtained.  ...  I  am 
especially  delighted  to  hear  that  the  Queen  wishes  to  go  through 
with  the  measure,  because  I  think  I  am  entitled  to  conclude  that 
she  is  not  acting  craftily."  * 

This  attitude  of  Catherine  could  not  be  long  concealed 
and  it  began  to  be  said  that  she  favored  the  Huguenots 
entirely.  The  advice  of  the  Admiral  and  his  friends  mani- 
festly carried  great  weight  with  her  and  several  of  her 
favorite  waiting  women  were  known  to, like  the  Reformed 
doctrines.  This  atmosphere  seems  to  have  been  felt  by  the 
youngest  members  of  the  court,  and  one  day,  when  Cath- 
erine was  in  conference  with  the  Cardinal  of  Ferrara  in  his 
room,  the  door  was  burst  open  and  a  procession  of  young 
princes  poured  in  dressed  as  archbishops,  bishops,  abbots 
and  monks.  At  its  head  on  a  little  donkey  rode  the  future 
Henry  IV.  The  Cardinal  laughed,  and  so  did  Catherine  at 
first,  but  then  she  scolded  them.  She  foresaw  trouble  and 
when  the  little  King  repeated  the  procession,  promenading 
through  the  rooms  and  corridors  in  ecclesiastical  regalia, 
there  was  a  great  scandal.  The  Nuncio  complained  to 
Catherine,  who  had  great  difficulty  in  passing  it  off  as  only 
the  "foolish  play  of  small  children."  ^ 

The  Estates  General  assembled  at  Pontoise  the  first  of 
August  in  the  extraordinary  form  of  a  very  small  number  of 
representatives  of  the  usual  delegates  of  the  orders  of  the 
provinces.  Catherine  had  made  strong  efforts  to  control  the 
elections  in  her  own  interests,  but  without  very  much  suc- 
cess. At  the  beginning,  the  existing  government  was  con- 
fronted with  a  difficulty  in  the  refusal  of  the  Estates  to 
recognize  a  regency  which  had  not  been  established  by  the 
representatives  of  the  people.  The  reluctance  of  the  Nobil- 
ity and  Clergy  was  soon  overcome,  but  the  Third  Estate 
held  out  for  some  time,  alleging  that  their  mandate  was  to 
confide  the  authority  to  the  princes  of  the  blood.  Largely  by 

*  Delaborde  pntd.  80.    Lett.  Calvin  to  Beza,  19  Nov.,  1561. 
»A.  N.  K.  1495,  De  Ruble  (2),  m,  223.    Arch.  C,  VI,  5, 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE       215 

the  influence  of  Admiral  Coligny,  they  were  induced  to 
abandon  this  position  and  "praise  and  agree  to  the  accord 
made  between  the  Queen  Mother  and  the  King  of  Navarre, 
"very  humbly  supplicating  the  said  lady  (whose  great  vir- 
tues and  large  experience  in  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom 
they  know)  to  continue  in  the  government  and  the  admin- 
istration of  the  King's  affairs."  The  nobility  repeated  the 
same  formula  of  acknowledgment.  They  saved,  however, 
the  constitutional  point  that  consent  should  not  be  made  a 
precedent  for  the  unauthorized  assumption  of  a  regency,  by 
declaring  that  it  was  "only  granted  to  the  Queen  Mother 
for  her  worthy  personal  qualities,"  and  proceeded  to  make  a 
series  of  assertions  of  fundamental  parliamentary  rights 
becoming  apparent  in  a  period  of  regency,  some  of  which 
cannot  be  paralleled  for  strength  and  clearness  by  any  utter- 
ance of  an  English  parliament  for  nearly  a  hundred  years.^ 

In  answer  to  the  question,  "How  to  pay  the  King's 
debts?"  the  nobility  and  the  Third  Estate  agreed  that 
"since  King  Henry  came  to  the  throne  the  people  have  paid 
such  heavy  taxes  that  they  cannot  pay  any  more,"  but  they 
recommended  various  plans  of  raising  the  money  from  the 
Church.  The  most  sweeping  was  to  sell  all  the  clerical 
property  of  the  kingdom,  pay  the  debts  out  of  the  resulting 
capital,  establish  a  big  loan  fund  for  the  use  of  merchants, 
pay  for  the  army  and  fortifications,  and,  with  the  remainder, 
estimated  at  about  forty  per  cent  of  the  income  of  the  fund, 
support  the  clergy. 

With  such  a  temper  as  this  among  the  representatives  of 
the  nobility  and  burghers,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  Crown 
could,  after  a  little  bickering,  obtain  a  large  concession  from 
the  Assembly  of  the  Clergy  which  was  meeting  at  the  same 
time  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Poissy.  They  agreed  to 
pay  sixteen  hundred  thousand  francs  a  year  for  six  years 
and  at  the  end  of  that  time  to  begin  the  repayment  of 
further  debts  amounting  to  seven  and  a  half  milHons  to  be 

*E.  g.  B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  27  f.  314.  Bethune  8697  f.  1,  Cal.  F.  1561,  p.  122, 
Cahiers.    B.  N.  Fds.  fr.  3970.    It.  1723  f,  76,  van  Dyke  reviews  (1). 


216  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

paid  in  ten  years.  This  was  not  as  much  as  the  Queen 
Mother  asked,  but  it  relieved  the  most  pressing  necessities 
of  the  government.^ 

Thus  the  outcome  of  the  Estates  at  Pontoise  which  the 
Queen  Mother  had  so  much  feared,  was  the  endorsement  of 
her  joint  regency  and  authority  with  Navarre,  and  a  large 
sum  of  money. 

But  with  the  outcome  of  the  Council  of  the  Church  and 
the  colloquy  with  the  heretics  held  at  Poissy,  Catherine  was 
very  much  disappointed.  She  had  arranged  this  conference 
to  take  measures  for  the  reform  of  the  Church  and  to  come 
to  some  agreement  on  doctrine  with  the  heretics  which 
might  be  laid  before  a  general  council  as  a  basis  for  the 
reunion  of  Christendom,  for  Catherine  was  one  of  a  number 
of  people  of  importance  then  quite  hopeful  that  the  schism 
could  be  healed  by  mutual  concession.^  On  the  first  point 
the  assembly  passed  a  series  of  excellent  resolutions  about 
the  character  and  the  method  of  election  of  the  bishops  and 
clergy.  But  it  was  only  a  surface  reform.  "God  knows  how 
all  the  prelates  stand  together  and  it  isn't  possible  to  make 
them  agree  to  touch  really  the  root  of  the  evil."  ^ 

On  the  second  point,  a  joint  doctrinal  agreement,  no  re- 
sult was  reached.  Fourteen  ministers,  chiefly  from  Switzer- 
land, supported  by  a  score  of  delegates  from  the  French 
Reformed  churches,  appeared  to  present  and  discuss  their 
confession  of  faith.  Before  the  colloquy  opened,  their 
leader,  Theodore  Beza,  had  a  private  conference  with  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  in  the  presence  of  the  Queen  Mother 
and  the  King  of  Navarre.  The  chief  difficulty  was  about 
the  doctrine  of  the  mass.  But  at  the  conclusion  of  the  talk, 
the  Cardinal  expressly  declared  to  the  Queen  Mother  that 
he  was  very  well  satisfied  with  what  he  heard  from  Beza 
and  that  he  had  strong  hopes  of  a  happy  issue  out  of  the 
colloquy. 

Catherine  never  could  quite  understand  theological  dif- 

*  Recueil,  I,  102,  103. 
'Neg.  Fr.  II,  452,608,618. 
'Contemporary  commeat. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE       217 

ferences  or  why  anybody  should  think  them  important. 
Although  pious  phrases  appear  constantly  in  her  letters,  it 
would  be  impossible  (except  for  an  occasional  passing  men- 
tion of  the  fact  that  she  had  been  at  mass)  to  tell  from 
them  whether  she  was  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant.  The 
Venetian  Ambassador,  commenting  on  a  conversation  he 
had  with  her  about  this  time,  wrote  home:  "I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  her  majesty  understands  what  the  word  'dogma' 
means 


"  1 


Whatever  hope  of  agreement  might  have  been  raised  by 
the  friendly  preliminary  interview  of  the  leaders  proved 
entirely  illusory.  When  Beza  began  to  explain  to  the  whole 
council  the  Reformed  doctrine  of  the  Communion  and  said 
that  in  it  "although  the  body  of  Christ  was  truly  offered 
and  communicated  in  a  spiritual  sense,  it  was,  nevertheless, 
materially,  as  far  from  the  bread  and  wine  as  the  sky  from 
the  earth,"  cries  of  "blasphemy"  broke  out.  Tournon,  the 
dean  of  the  cardinals,  rose  at  once  to  demand  of  the  Queen 
either  that  Beza  should  be  silenced  or  that  he  and  his 
friends  should  be  allowed  to  retire  from  the  room.  When 
Beza  had  finished  his  address,  the  Queen  Mother  explained, 
in  reply  to  the  Cardinal  of  Tournon,  that  she  had  called  this 
colloquy  in  accord  with  the  advice  of  the  royal  council  and 
the  Parlement  of  Paris,  not  to  change  the  doctrines  of  the 
Church  or  to  make  trouble,  but  to  appease  trouble  arising 
from  diversity  of  opinion  in  regard  to  religion,  and  to  bring 
those  who  had  wandered,  back  in  to  the  true  fold. 

At  a  subsequent  meeting  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  de- 
livered an  address  whose  eloquence  and  logic  was  univer- 
sally applauded  by  the  orthodox  party  as  absolutely  unan- 
swerable. The  Reformed,  on  the  other  hand,  spoke  of  it  as  a 
very  defective  piece  of  argument  and  the  celebrated  Ramus, 
a  professor  of  the  University  of  Paris,  wrote  a  letter  explain- 
ing that  this  speech  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  in  favor  of 
Catholicism  had  converted  him  from  Catholicism  to  Prot- 
estantism.  A  private  conference  between  three  bishops  and 

*B.  N.  It.  1721  f.  338. 


218  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

three  Roman  Catholic  theologians  and  five  of  the  leading 
Reformed  ministers,  resulted  in  a  written  formula  in  regard 
to  the  sacrament  of  the  communion  which  all  of  them 
signed,  but,  when  it  was  laid  before  the  assembly  on  the 
4th  of  October,  it  was  rejected  with  anger  and  the  colloquy 
broke  up  leaving  the  two  parties  more  opposed  to  each 
other  than  before.  This  extreme  hatred  found  its  spokes- 
man in  the  Spaniard,  Lainez,  General  of  the  Jesuit  order 
(newly  introduced  into  France  by  the  influence  of  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine),  who,  speaking  in  Italian,  addressed 
to  the  Queen  Mother  reproaches  which  brought  "the  tears 
to  her  eyes"  and  threatened  her  with  the  ruin  of  the  realm 
if  she  did  not  drive  out  these  "wolves,  foxes,  serpents,  and 
assassins."  ^ 

It  was  evident  that  the  Estates  of  Pontoise,  like  the 
previous  Estates  of  Orleans,  had  been  dominated  by  those 
who  had  at  least  enough  sympathy  with  the  heretic  churches 
to  be  unwilling  to  persecute  them.  The  Third  Estate  had 
demanded  that  persecution  on  account  of  religion  should 
cease  except  in  the  case  of  anabaptists,  libertines  and 
atheists,  and  that,  in  each  city  where  it  was  needed,  a  tem- 
ple should  be  granted  for  dissenting  worship  under  the 
supervision  of  a  royal  officer;  all  secret  assemblies  and  all 
violence  either  against  the  orthodox  or  dissenting  worship 
being  sternly  repressed.  In  addition  to  this  the  General 
Synod  of  the  illegal  Reformed  churches,  held  in  March, 
had  endorsed  the  fundamental  proposition  of  the  Estates  of 
Pontoise  that  the  Estates  General  of  France  had  the  right 
in  case  of  a  regency  to  establish  the  government  and  to 
nominate  the  royal  council  and  that  the  Estates  General 
ought  not  to  take  any  action  in  regard  to  supply,  or  any- 
thing else,  until  this  legitimate  demand  was  acknowledged.^ 

We  know  exactly  what  Catherine  thought  about  the 
action  taken  at  Pontoise  from  a  letter  she  told  her  secretary, 
de  I'Aubespine,  to  write  to  his  brother,  the  Ambassador  at 

*  Waddington,  135 ;  Bouille  qtd.  Mss.,  II,  157. 
'Cahier  is  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3970.    Quick,  Synodicon,  12. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE       219 

Madrid.  She  did  not  see  in  it  anything  whatever  except 
the  results  of  court  intrigue,  because  "as  you  know,  the 
princes  of  the  blood  are  offended  and  very  much  angered 
with  each  other  and  the  relatives  of  'the  gentleman'  (Mary 
Stuart)  are  always  pushing  the  wheel  of  trouble."  He  pro- 
ceeds: 

"The  Queen  does  not  believe  that  the  outward  reconciliation 
which  has  been  patched  up  between  Conde  and  Guise  is  very 
strong.  This  poor  kingdom  is  carrying  dough  to  the  oven  and 
the  Queen  is  greatly  to  be  pitied  because  she  does  not  please 
anybody  and  is  little  obeyed  except  when  she  gives  people  what 
they  demand.  I  forgot  to  tell  you  also  that  the  Estates  say  that, 
before  any  money  is  voted,  those  who  had  charge  of  the  finances 
in  the  time  of  Francis  I  and  Henry  II  and  Francis  II,  must  give 
an  accounting  of  the  immense  gifts  which  they  have  received. 
The  Constable  kicks  like  a  horse  and  in  spite  of  his  league  he 
don't  know  where  he  is,  because  he  thought  to  cover  over  every- 
thing with  the  mantle  of  religion,  as,  to  speak  truly,  the  others 
do  also,  and  they  are  blowing  the  fire  as  much  as  they  can  in 
order  to  strike  fear  to  the  heart  of  the  Queen,  who  commanded 
me  last  night  to  write  this  long  letter  because  she  hasn't  time. 
Last  night  at  midnight  Guise  and  the  Constable  tried  to  frighten 
the  Queen  Mother  about  all  these  things,  saying  that  it  was  plain 
that  the  Catholics  were  arming  and  that  there  was  immediate 
danger  of  seeing  the  kingdom  divided  by  civil  war.  God  grant 
that  all  may  turn  out  well,  but  we  live  in  terrible  times." 

The  evident  strength  of  the  friends  of  the  Reformed 
religion  in  the  Estates  of  Pontoise  and  the  fact  that  the 
influence  of  the  Admiral  Coligny  among  the  deputies  had 
diverted  the  attacks  upon  her  own  authority,  inclined  Cath- 
erine to  let  the  Reformed  party  have  their  own  way  at 
court.  The  Spanish  Ambassador  wrote  the  beginning  of 
September,  1561,  "There  is  no  hope  for  religion  in  this  realm 
and  I  don't  know  what  to  think  of  the  Queen  Mother,  who 
lets  herself  be  managed  at  the  pleasure  of  these  heretics. 
All  who  have  influence  with  her,  men  and  women,  are  of 
these  evil  opinions.  They  don't  conceal  it  and  she  can't  be 
ignorant  of  it."  ^ 

»B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6618  f.  4.    A.  N.  K.  1494. 


220  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

During  the  whole  month  of  October,  news  kept  coming 
up  from  the  provinces  of  the  forcible  seizure  of  churches  by 
the  Reformed,  accompanied  by  a  quite  widespread  outbreak 
of  what  historians  have  come  to  speak  of  under  the  tech- 
nical term  of  "iconoclasm."  This  is  a  form  of  mob  hysteria 
which  has  repeated  itself  in  various  other  times  and  places, 
as  for  instance  at  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution,  when 
religious  zeal  was  not  an  element.  It  showed  itself  in  the 
systematic  breaking  and  destruction,  without  any  private 
plundering,  of  all  statues,  pictures  and  other  ornaments  of 
the  churches.  This  violence  was  openly  denounced  by  all 
the  leaders  of  the  reform.  Calvin  msisted  that  a  minister 
who  had  led  an  iconoclastic  mob  should  be  expelled  from 
the  church.  The  four  thousand  Huguenot  gentlemen  who 
a  little  later  signed  a  pact  with  Conde,  bound  themselves 
among  other  things  to  oppose  all  breaking  of  images  and 
sacking  of  churches.  But  these  exhortations  were  not  able 
to  check  the  practice  and  many  of  the  Reformed  ministers 
seemed  to  come  to  see  in  it  some  sort  of  mysterious  move- 
ment of  the  Spirit  of  God  and  to  speak  only  half-heartedly 
in  reproving  it.  As  for  instance  when  Beza  writes  to  the 
Queen  of  Navarre  that  "the  breaking  of  images  has  always 
been  displeasing  to  him — the  more  so  because  it  seems  to 
him  that  it  has  no  foundation  in  the  word  of  God.  .  .  . 
Nevertheless,  because  the  act  in  itself  is  according  to  the 
will  of  God,  who  condemns  idols  and  idolaters  and  because 
it  appears  that  in  a  thing  so  general  there  may  be  some 
secret  design  of  God  ...  I  am  content  to  reprove  it  in  a 
general  way  and  to  moderate  such  impetuosity  as  much  as 
I  can."  1 

The  government  replied  to  this  news  of  law  breaking  by 
ordering  all  governors  to  go  to  their  provinces  and  passing 
other  repressive  measures.  These  orders  passed  unani- 
mously without  opposition  from  members  known  to  sym- 
pathize with  the  heretics  and  in  many  places  they  were  not 

*  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3158  f .  38,  It.  1732  f.  93.  C.  C.  C.  X  A.  N.  K.  1495, 
Oct.  13.    Calvin  to  Church  of  Sauve;  Conde,  II,  359. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE        221 

at  all  enforced.  It  was  therefore  charged  that  a  secret 
understanding  assured  the  Huguenots  that,  if  they  stopped 
rioting,  they  would  be  quietly  allowed  to  worship  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  such  an  agreement  had  actually  been  made  by 
Catherine  with  the  leading  Reformed  ministers. 

But  no  one  who  knows  the  sixteenth  century  can  sup- 
pose for  a  moment  that  what  the  Huguenot  churches  really 
wanted  was  simply  liberty  to  worship.    They  looked  for- 
ward ultimately  to  the  substitution  of  their  worship  for 
Roman  Catholic  worship  and  such  a  suppression  of  ortho- 
doxy and  the  ancient  rites  as  had  taken  place  in  England. 
The  Huguenot  chiefs  wished  to  break  the  power  of  the 
Guise  and  to  reject  the  claim  of  Spain  to  dominate  in  French 
religious  concerns.    Calvinist,  nationalist  and  anti-Spanish 
feeling  throughout  the  nation  at  large  combined,  therefore, 
at  the  moment,  to  strengthen  the  anti-Guise  faction,  now 
basking  in  the  full  light  of  royal  favor,  and  the  Trium- 
virate, finding  themselves  decidedly  overmatched,  began  to 
make  conciliatory  movements.    In  the  end  of  August  Guise 
had  even  yielded  to  the  urging  of  the  Queen  Mother  and 
gone  through,  in  the  room  of  the  Constable,  a  formal  scene 
of  reconciliation  with  Conde.     The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine, 
who  was  by  conviction  a  Gallican  and  a  liberal  in  theology, 
began  to  throw  his  influence  into  the  stream  of  nationalist 
feeling.    He  spoke  in  favor  of  a  national  council.    He  was 
quoted  as  wishing  to  cut  off  the  French  annates  from  the 
papal   treasury   and   he   had   strenuous   words   with   the 
Legate.    A  sure  sign  that  he  really  faltered  in  unquestioning 
support  of  the  extreme  papal  party  is  the  fact  that  the 
ultramontanes  did  to  him  what  they  always  did  to  any  one 
who  failed  to  back  entirely  their  policy,  accused  him  of 
secret  heresy  and  irreligion — which  is  what  every  ultra- 
orthodox  faction  in  every  religious  organization.  Christian 
or  pagan,  has  always  been  prone  to  do  to  any  of  their  own 
adherents  who  became  independent  enough  to  vary  from 
their  entire  program.    It  was  whispered  around  that  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was  becoming  a  schismatic,   who 


222  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

wanted  to  withdraw  France  from  the  Roman  obedience  and 
a  heretic  who  had  doubts  about  the  doctrine  of  transub- 
stantiation.* 

But  all  these  efforts  of  the  Guise  to  further  divide  their 
adversaries  or  divert  their  support  were  futile.  The  younger 
Bourbon-Montmorency-Chatillon  combination  stood  firm. 
The  King  of  Navarre  had  again  changed  his  inclination, 
apparently  with  the  idea  that,  after  all,  he  could  get  more 
out  of  Catherine  than  anyone  else.  She  was  entirely  favor- 
able to  the  influences  which  had  endorsed  her  authority  and 
Calvinism  became  the  reigning  fashion  at  court.  Zealous 
churchmen  feared,  and  the  fear  was  no  mere  unreasonable 
panic,  that  the  Valois  might  try  to  imitate  the  Tudors  and 
set  up  a  Gallican  Church  like  the  Anglican  Church.  The 
Guise  gave  up  the  struggle  and  made  up  their  minds  to 
watch  events.  On  the  20th  of  October  they  left  court  with 
all  their  adherents  in  a  great  company  of  more  than  six 
hundred  horse.  Two  days  later  the  Constable  retired  to  his 
Estates  and  the  Marshals  de  Brissac  and  St.  Andre  went 
with  him.  Spain  had  shown  very  plainly  a  willingness  to 
help  the  Triumvirate  in  any  attempt  to  force  the  French 
Crown  back  to  the  policy  of  persecution.  Philip  sent  word 
to  Catherine  that  he  could  not  allow  heresy  to  increase  in 
France  because  of  the  danger  of  infecting  the  Netherlands. 
He  had  offered  her  money  and  troops  to  help  suppress  it. 
"She  ought  not  therefore  to  take  it  ill  if  for  the  service  of 
God  .  .  .  and  of  all  Christendom  he  assisted  the  Lord's 
people  and  the  Estates  of  your  kingdom  who  are  Catholic 
.  .  .  and  he  would  put  his  life  and  all  he  had  on  the  hazard 
of  that  die."  To  this  warning  letter  Phihp  added  a  phrase 
which  subsequent  events  made  somewhat  significant. 
"Great  care  must  be  taken  about  the  instruction  of  the 
King,  lest  he  too  be  infected  with  heresy."  From  the  ortho- 
dox point  of  view  there  was  need  of  the  warning.  It  was 
reported  to  the  English  court  that  the  little  King  himself 
asked  his  heretic  cousin,  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  if  the  mass 

*B.  N.  It.  1721  f.  334f.  93. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  SUPPORT  CATHERINE        223 

was  true,  and  suggested  that  his  cousins  need  not  come 
unless  they  beheved  in  it.^ 

The  attempt  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  Catholic  party 
to  meet  this  danger  that  the  princes  might  become  Hugue- 
nots, resulted  in  a  plot  which  filled  Catherine  with  fear  and 
anger.  It  was  nothing  less  than  a  plan  to  carry  off  the  heir 
to  the  throne,  her  second  son,  perhaps  with  the  intention  of 
bringing  the  boy  up  to  serve  as  a  future  head  for  the  ortho- 
dox party.  Catherine  could  never  get  to  the  bottom  of  the 
affair  in  spite  of  all  her  efforts  to  do  so,  but  it  is  evident 
that  there  was  something  behind  the  few  facts  that  she 
knew. 

Among  the  adherents  of  the  Guise  in  the  cavalcade 
which  followed  them  on  their  departure  from  court,  had 
been  the  brilliant  Duke  of  Nemours,  a  cadet  of  the  ruling 
house  of  Savoy.  A  splendid  man  of  the  world  and  an  able 
soldier,  Nemours  did  not  depreciate  his  own  value.  He 
was  as  successful  with  women  as  he  was  heartless.  After 
betraying  his  fiancee.  Mademoiselle  de  Rohan,  under  prom- 
ise of  marriage,  he  was  finally  to  marry  a  fortune  with  the 
widow  of  the  Duke  of  Guise.  Before  leaving  court  on  the 
20th  of  October  he  had  tried  to  persuade  the  heir  to  the 
throne,  the  future  Henry  III,  to  steal  away  and  leave 
France  with  him.  The  little  boy  told  the  royal  council 
what  happened  and  signed  his  deposition  in  a  big,  round 
hand.  He  said  that  Nemours  had  taken  him  near  to  a  chest 
in  the  room  of  the  King  and  asked  him  if  he  was  a  Hugue- 
not. He  said,  "No,"  that  he  was  of  the  religion  of  his 
mother.  Behind  the  tapestry  nearby  were  Denise  and 
Marguerite,  waiting-women  of  the  Queen.  He  then  took 
him  to  the  other  side  of  the  room  and  said,  "There's  a  great 
deal  of  trouble  in  the  kingdom  and  you're  not  safe  here 
because  the  King  of  Navarre  and  the  Prince  of  Conde  want 
to  make  themselves  King  and  want  to  kill  you.  If  you  like, 
I'll  take  you  to  Lorraine  or  to  Savoy,  where  you'll  be  safe." 
He  answered  that  he  didn't  want  to  leave  the  King  nor 

•»Neg.  To6C.  m,  466,  Cal.  F.  1561,  p.  397,  415.    B.  N.  It.  1723  f.  101. 


224  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

his  mother,  the  Queen.  Nemours  also  told  him,  "Remem- 
ber, when  the  Duke  of  Guise  is  leaving,  to  say  to  him,  *My 
cousin,  if  you  can't  take  me  with  you  now,  I  beg  of  you  to 
come  when  I  have  need  of  you.' "  The  boy  was  strictly 
charged  not  to  say  anything  about  this  to  the  Queen  or  to 
his  tutors,  and  "If  they  ask  you  what  it  is  that  I  have  been 
talking  to  you  about,  say  that  I  was  talking  to  you  about 
the  comedies,"  and  on  leaving,  Nemours  said,  "Remember 
what  I  have  told  you."  Nemours  escaped  arrest  and  Cath- 
erine could  not  find  him,  though  she  looked  for  him  high 
and  low.^ 

The  Duke  of  Guise  and  the  King  of  Spain  expressed  the 
utmost  abhorrence  of  any  such  attempt  and  all  Catherine's 
efforts  could  get  no  evidence  to  implicate  them  in  it,  but  it 
did  not  increase  her  love  for  either  of  them.  The  thing  she 
feared  most  in  the  world  was  any  attempt  to  weaken  her 
children's  dependence  on  her.  She  had  long  secretly  hated 
the  house  of  Guise  and  probably  her  deep  dislike  of  her 
son-in-law,  the  King  of  Spain,  which  she  continued  to  mask 
under  flattering  phrases,  dates  from  this  time.  She  was 
willing  for  a  while  to  rest  completely  on  the  support  of 
Coligny,  Conde  and  the  Huguenots.  The  Triumvirate  kept 
itself  very  carefully  in  the  background  away  from  court. 
Guise  wrote  to  the  Constable  that  he  and  his  brother  spent 
all  of  their  time  hunting  "and  my  talk  is  of  nothing  but 
dogs  and  hawks."  ^ 

*  Brant.,  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6608;  the  original.  The  copy  pntd.  Letts.  I,  246, 
varies  seriously. 

»B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6626  f.  51. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MURDER  AND  RIOT.      THE  EDICT  OF  JANUARY  LEGALIZES  THE 
REFORMED  WORSHIP 

Meantime  disorder  increased  in  various  parts  of  France. 
Two  things  which  happened  within  a  week  will  serve  as 
specimens.  On  the  19th  of  November  a  mob  in  the  city  of 
Cahors  attacked  a  house  in  which  Huguenots  were  worships 
ping,  set  it  on  fire,  killed  fifty  of  the  worshippers,  dragged 
many  of  the  corpses  through  the  street,  and  finally  burnt 
a  great  pile  of  them  in  the  public  square.  On  the  24th 
of  November  a  mob  of  peasants  stormed  the  castle 
of  Baron  Fumel,  who  had  tried  to  prevent  a  Huguenot 
minister  from  preaching  before  his  vassals,  killed  him  in  the 
presence  of  his  wife,  and  plundered  his  chateau.  Catherine 
wrote  to  the  widow  the  following  letter:  "Madame  de 
Fumel:  Having  heard  of  the  cruel  and  inhumane  death  of 
Monsieur  de  Fumel  your  husband,  I  have  been  filled  with 
the  sorrow  and  regret  which  you  can  imagine,  not  only 
because  the  King  my  son  has  lost  a  good  servitor,  but  on 
your  account.  For  that  reason  you  can  assure  yourself  that 
I  will  put  my  hand  to  such  a  cruel  and  rigorous  punishment 
of  the  authors  of  so  evil  an  act  that  it  shall  never  be  forgot- 
ten. So  far  as  you  are  concerned,  believe  that  I  will  look 
after  you  and  your  children  as  his  services  merited.  I  have 
already  sent  the  order  of  the  King  for  six  hundred  francs  of 
pension  for  your  oldest  son.  I  am  satisfied  that  your 
youngest  son  should  have  the  Abbey  of  Bonneval,  as  you 
demand,  and  so  far  as  your  daughters  are  concerned,  send 
them  to  me  and  I  will  take  them  to  bring  up  in  my  house." 
The  accounts  of  this  murder  given  by  Huguenot  writers  half 
excuse  the  act,  saying  that  Fumel  was  an  exceedingly  cruel 
seigneur,  who  was  killed  during  the  storming  and  the  plun- 

225 


226  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

dering  of  the  chateau  by  two  sons  of  vassals  who  had  suf- 
fered particularly  under  his  tyranny:  "Reserved,  as  it 
seems,  for  that  justice  of  God  by  a  singular  providence."  ^ 

These  and  a  number  of  similar  acts  of  violence  took 
place  in  the  Province  of  Guienne,  which,  according  to  all 
reports,  was  rapidly  drifting  into  a  state  of  desperate  civil 
war.  The  Queen  sent  down  two  civil  commissioners  and  an 
old  soldier  who  had  served  under  her  husband  in  the  Italian 
wars,  Blaise  de  Monluc,  to  support  them  with  military  force. 
Their  instructions  were  to  execute  even  justice  on  both 
sides,  to  appease  the  province  and  to  use  force  only  where  it 
was  necessary :  "The  King,  hoping  more  from  prudence  and 
dexterity  than  from  force."  - 

Monluc  found  in  Guienne  an  attitude  among  the  ad- 
herents of  the  Reform,  to  which  he  had  previously  been 
somewhat  inclined,  which  helped  to  turn  him  into  a  most 
determined  enemy  of  the  Huguenot  cause.  It  was  a  politi- 
cal or  social  attitude  not  shared  by  the  members  of  the 
Huguenot  party  in  general,  but  worthy  of  attention  because 
many  others  besides  Monluc  thought  and  charged  that  it 
was  not  exceptional,  but  characteristic  of  the  Huguenot 
party  and  of  Calvinism  in  general.  He  tells  the  story  in  his 
vivacious  memoirs,  which,  although  distorted  and  disfigured 
by  colossal  vanity,  are  not  untrustworthy.  His  explanation 
to  account  for  his  change  of  side,  is  that  a  minister  came  to 
him  and  offered  him,  in  the  name  of  the  Reformed  churches, 
a  good  present  of  money  and  the  support  of  four  thousand 
paid  foot-soldiers.  Monluc  says  he  refused  the  present  and 
then  asked  him  who  dared  to  enroll  soldiers  without  the 
express  permission  of  the  Queen  Mother?  "Then  I  com- 
menced to  swear  and  grabbed  him  by  the  collar,  saying 
these  words,  'I  don't  know  what  keeps  me  from  hanging 
you  myself  to  the  bars  of  this  window,  you  miserable  scoun- 
drel, because  I  have  strangled  with  my  own  hands  at  least  a 
score  of  better  men  than  you  are.'    He  left  me,  having  had 

»B.  N.  fds.  fr.  15877  f.  452.    Tortorel,  Letts.  I,  260.    Hist.  Ecc,  I,  886. 
'B,  N.  fds.  fr.  15875,  f.  qtd.  Courteault  (2),  403. 


MURDER  AND  RIOT  227 

the  most  beautiful  fear  that  he  had  ever  experienced." 
Meeting  later  one  of  his  old  soldiers  who  told  him  that  the 
church  at  Nerac  had  made  him  their  captain,  Monluc  called 
out,  "And  what  the  devil  are  these  churches  who  make 
captains?"  * 

Monluc  made  up  his  mind  that  a  man  by  the  name  of 
Verdier  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  sedition  in  Guienne.  He 
therefore  had  him  arrested,  together  with  three  others.  A 
certain  gentleman  had  told  him  that  when  he  had  remon- 
strated with  these  men  before  the  consuls  of  the  city,  that 
the  King  would  find  their  conduct  evil,  they  had  answered, 
"What  King?  We  are  King.  He  is  nothing  but  a  dirty 
little  kinglet.  We'll  give  him  the  whip  and  teach  him  to 
earn  his  living  as  other  people  do."  Monluc  believed  they 
had  repeated  similar  language  elsewhere.  When  he  met  the 
culprits  he  had  two  executioners  behind  him,  with  sharp 
swords.  The  consuls,  after  some  hesitation,  confirmed  the 
testimony  which  had  been  given  in  regard  to  the  words  used 
by  these  men  about  the  King.  Whereupon  Monluc  says  he 
called  out: 

"  'You  miserable  scoundrel,  have  you  really  dared  to  soil  your 
wicked  tongue  by  speaking  against  the  majesty  of  your  King?* 
He  answered,  'Oh,  sir,  have  pity  on  a  miserable  sinner!'  I  seized 
him  and  pushed  him  rudely  to  the  earth  and  his  head  fell  exactly 
upon  a  piece  of  the  base  of  a  cross  which  had  been  broken  off 
in  a  Huguenot  riot.  I  called  out  to  the  executioner,  'Strike, 
fellow.'  My  words  and  his  blow  followed  one  upon  the  other 
and  it  carried  off  more  than  a  half  a  foot  of  the  stone  at  the 
base  of  the  cross.  I  had  the  other  two  hung  to  an  elm  that 
stood  just  opposite,  and  because  the  fourth  (a  deacon  of  the 
church)  was  only  eighteen  years  old,  I  did  not  want  to  put  him 
to  death,  but  I  had  him  given  so  many  blows  of  the  whip  by 
the  executioners  that  I  am  told  he  died  ten  or  twelve  days  after- 
wards. That  was  the  first  execution  that  I  made  without  sen- 
tence or  putting  pen  to  paper,  because  in  this  sort  of  affair  I 
have  heard  that  it  is  best  to  commence  with  an  execution.  If 
all  of  those  who  had  authority  in  the  provinces  had  done  the 

*Courteault  (2),  390,  391;  Rel.  I,  4,  p.  137. 


228  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

same  thing,  the  fire  would  have  been  put  out  which  has  since 
burnt  everything."^ 

While  elsewhere  the  nobility  had  become  the  dominating 
element  in  the  Huguenot  party,  in  Guienne  (the  only 
province  where  many  of  the  peasants  were  converted  to  the 
Reformed  doctrine)  the  movement  took  a  distinctly  anti- 
feudal  and  anti-royal  character.  "The  nobles  became  afraid 
to  go  hunting,  for  the  peasants  killed  their  dogs  before  their 
eyes  and  they  didn't  dare  to  say  a  word  for  fear  of  their 
lives."  "If  a  lord  dared  to  resist,  word  was  sent  to  the 
churches  and  within  four  or  five  hours  he  was  either  dead, 
hidden  or  flying  for  his  life  to  the  city  of  Toulouse,  the  only 
place  where  he  could  be  safe."  ^  This  tendency  towards 
democracy  and  social  revolution  in  the  province  of  Guienne 
was  much  blamed  by  the  leaders  of  the  Reformed  Churches, 
both  intellectual  and  political,  like  Calvin,  Beza,  Coligny 
and  Conde,  but  this  early  local  tendency  continued  for  a 
long  time  to  be  cited  in  support  and  justification  of  the 
assertion  of  the  orthodox  that  revolution  in  the  Church 
meant  revolution  in  the  whole  fabric  of  human  society. 

The  members  of  the  Triumvirate,  although  staying  away 
from  court,  were  getting  ready,  if  necessary,  to  wage  civil 
war  in  defense  of  the  exclusive  right  of  the  old  religion  to 
exist  in  France,  and  to  block  what  they  feared  was  the 
intention  of  the  Huguenot  party  to  make  France  follow 
England  in  the  road  of  schism  and  the  establishment  of  a 
national  Church.  They  very  skilfully  began  their  prepara- 
tions by  negotiations  with  the  King  of  Navarre.  Catherine 
knew  very  well  the  danger  that  they  would  work  upon  his 
ambition  and  so  draw  him  over  again  to  their  side  and  she 
again  did  her  best  to  get  the  King  of  Spain  to  allow  her 
to  promise  to  give  him  back  Spanish  Navarre  or  to  replace 
it  by  some  other  kingdom.  But  Philip  played  with  the 
offer  and  wasted  time.^ 

*Courteault  (1),  I,  pp.  416,  425. 

'  Monluc. 

•A.  N.  K.  1494,  B.  18,  21. 


MURDER  AND  RIOT  229 

On  the  other  side,  however,  Navarre  was  plied  with 
every  sort  of  argument.  If  he  would  declare  himself  a 
Catholic,  the  King  of  Spain  would,  at  the  intercession  of 
the  Pope,  give  him  back  Spanish  Navarre  or  else  make  him 
King  of  Sardinia,  or  at  least  give  him  a  new  kingdom  in 
Tunis.  It  was  even  pointed  out  to  him  that  the  celebrated 
soothsayer,  Nostradamus,  had  predicted  that  Catherine 
would  see  all  her  sons  on  the  throne  of  France.  This  im- 
plied that  they  were  all  to  die  in  rather  rapid  succession 
and,  on  their  death,  he  would  be  the  next  heir.  If  he  were 
a  heretic,  he  could  not  possibly  succeed.  The  consequence 
was  that  in  the  end  of  December  the  unstable  King,  chasing 
his  rainbow  kingdom  filled  with  castles  in  Spain,  gave  up 
attending  the  preachings,  began  to  go  to  mass,  and  bound 
himself  closely  to  the  policy  of  the  Triumvirate.^ 

Catherine  was  very  much  worried  by  this  defection, 
which  formed  in  France  a  solid  party  certainly  opposed  to 
her  policy,  probably  opposed  to  her  authority,  supported 
by  a  big  league  of  the  Roman  Catholic  nobility  in  Guienne 
and  backed  by  the  King  of  Spain,  the  Pope  and  certain 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  princes  of  Germany.  She  therefore 
did  two  things:  first,  she  requested  Coligny  and  the  other 
leaders  of  the  Reform  party  to  give  her  a  list  of  the  Re- 
formed churches  and  to  inquire  what  forces  they  could  put 
in  the  field  in  case  she  needed  their  support.  The  Admiral 
wrote  at  once  to  all  the  provinces,  exhorting  the  ministers  to 
send  him  a  written  list  of  all  the  secret  churches  who  pro- 
fessed the  Reformed  religion.  The  replies  showed  that  there 
were  about  two  thousand  five  hundred  such  churches  in 
France,  which  asked  to  be  granted  places  of  worship  and 
offered  to  the  King  "both  life  and  goods"  if  he  needed  them. 
In  reply  the  Queen  secretly  ordered  that  each  minister 
should  read  in  his  church  at  the  hour  of  the  sermon  the  fol- 
lowing written  appeal:  "Inasmuch  as  many  reports  are  cur- 
rent that  strangers,  under  pretense  of  the  Roman  religion 

»Castelnau,  Bk.  lU,  Ch.  6;  Rel.  I,  4,  p.  60;  Cal.  F.,  Dec,  1561,  A.  N.  K. 
1407,  Jan.,  1562. 


230  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

which  they  say  they  wish  to  maintain,  are  planning  to  enter 
this  kingdom  and  take  possession  of  it,  it  is  the  duty  of  all 
faithful  subjects  to  show  the  entire  goodwill  which  they 
have  to  their  King.  But  above  all,  because  such  a  quarrel 
which  these  aliens  allege  as  a  pretext  seems  to  be  directed 
against  those  whom  they  call  of  the  new  rehgion,  there  is 
the  more  reason  that  we  should  make  a  manifest  demonstra- 
tion that  we  would  not  spare  either  our  lives  or  our  goods 
to  maintain  the  state  and  grandeur  of  our  King.  And  in 
order  to  make  this  demonstration  it  is  necessary  that  in  this 
church,  we  consider  as  soon  as  possible  what  offer  it  can 
make  to  the  King,  of  men,  either  infantry  or  cavalry  which 
it  can  support  at  its  expense  ...  to  maintain  the  Crown 
of  the  realm  against  those  who  would  wish  to  invade  it  un- 
der the  pretext  of  religion.  All  must  be  done  in  the  fear  of 
God  without  any  disorder  ...  so  that  even  those  who  hold 
another  religion  may  not  have  any  justihcation  to  accuse 
us  as  the  authors  of  any  sedition  or  riot."  ^ 

The  second  thing  that  Catherine  did  was  to  write  a  long 
letter  to  the  King  of  Spain,  in  which  she  endeavored  to 
dissuade  him  from  supporting  the  party  opposed  to  her 
policy  of  conciliation.  Replying  to  his  statement  that  the 
Catholics,  persecuted  on  all  sides,  had  no  refuge  except  in 
him,  she  denies  both  the  fact  and  the  conclusion  and  goes 
on :  "But  religion  is  a  cover  which  they  use  to  hide  an  evil 
intention,  and  for  that  reason  I  beg  you,  my  son,  examine 
well  the  real  intentions  of  those  who  make  use  of  that 
mantle  and  nevertheless  have  nothing  less  than  religion  in 

their  hearts That's  the  whole  truth,  my  son,  which  I 

have  wanted  to  write  you  in  this  letter  in  order  that  you 
might  be  able  to  know  really  how  little  reason  anybody  has 
to  be  malcontent." 

None  of  this  pressure  succeeded  in  making  Catherine 
waver  in  her  policy  of  conciliation,  which  seemed  after  all 
best  fitted  to  save  her  own  authority  and  preserve  the  throne 
of  her  infant  son.    But  she  called  another  Assembly  of  the 

*Hist.  Ecc.  744.  Bk.  IV. 


MURDER  AND  RIOT  231 

Notables,  consisting  of  the  chief  personages  from  each 
parlement  of  the  kingdom,  the  royal  council  and  the 
princes  of  the  blood,  which  finally  opened  on  the  3rd  of 
January,  1562.  The  family  of  Guise,  the  Constable  and 
their  most  notable  adherents  were  conspicuous  by  their 
absence.  There  was  no  unanimity  of  opinion.  Of  eleven 
presidents  of  parlements  who  spoke,  five  were  strongly 
Roman  Catholic,  three  were  entirely  opposed  to  the  ortho- 
dox doctrine  and  three  were  so  neutral  that  no  one  could 
tell  exactly  where  they  stood.  The  Provost  of  the  Mer- 
chants of  Paris  appeared  at  one  meeting,  accompanied  by 
two  hundred  of  the  principal  burghers  of  the  city.  He 
spoke  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  appear  that  there  was 
no  uniformity  of  sentiment  among  that  delegation.  The 
assembly  as  a  whole  was  very  strongly  in  favor  of  the  policy 
of  conciliation.  Catherine  felt  obliged  to  moderate  their 
views  and  it  was  only  her  strong  hand  joined  to  that  of  the 
King  of  Navarre,  which  kept  them  from  voting  that  the 
Huguenots  should  have  churches  assigned  to  them  through- 
out the  kingdom.  The  Nuncio  reported:  "It  is  said  no 
orator  ever  expressed  himself  with  greater  eloquence,  energy 
and  success  than  the  Queen.  She  has  since  said  herself  that 
it  seemed  to  her  at  the  time  as  if  God  was  dictating  to  her 
the  very  words  she  used."  ^ 

The  edict  which  was  approved,  called  the  Edict  of 
January,  while  not  indeed  putting  the  Reformed  church  on 
the  same  basis  as  the  orthodox  church,  did  give  it  for  the 
first  time  a  legal  standing  in  France.  It  was  provided  that 
those  of  the  new  religion  should  immediately  surrender  all 
the  churches  they  had  seized  and  return  all  the  ornaments 
and  other  church  property  which  they  had  removed  from 
them.  They  were  permitted  to  select  places  of  worship  out- 
side the  walls  of  the  cities  in  which  they  lived  and  the 
magistrates  were  to  see  to  it  that  they  were  not  interfered 
with,  either  in  going  to  worship  or  returning  from  it.    Men 

*  Letts.  I,  264.  Hist.  Ecc,  751,  n.  2.  Pasquier  (2),  I,  91;  Arch.  C. 
VI,  20,  24;  Nuncio.    Conde,  II,  20;  Neg.  Toec.  UI,  472. 


232  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

of  both  religions  were  forbidden  to  irritate  each  other  by 
the  use  of  reproaches  and  evil  words,  especially  in  sermons. 
No  synods  or  consistories  were  to  be  held  by  the  new  church 
except  by  permission  and  a  royal  officer  was  to  be  always 
allowed,  if  he  desired,  to  attend  all  assemblies.  No  one 
of  either  religion  was  to  carry  any  arms  except  the  sword 
and  dagger  usual  with  gentlemen. 

This  was  less  than  the  Reformed  churches  would  have 
liked,  but  "the  ministers  and  deputies  of  the  churches  of 
France  who  were  at  court"  received  it  thankfully  and  sent 
it  out  to  the  churches  with  annotations,  bidding  them 
strictly  observe  all  its  commands  and  agreements.  The 
Legate  and  the  Nuncio  also  accepted  it  as  better  than  they 
had  feared.^ 

Opposition  of  three  sorts  at  once  began  to  appear.  Even 
before  the  deliberations  of  the  assembly  were  over,  the 
Spanish  Ambassador  attacked  the  Queen  Mother,  saying 
that  "the  proposition  which  had  been  made  the  day  before 
by  the  Chancellor  FHospital  would  bring  the  total  ruin  of 
the  kingdom  and  the  great  displeasure  of  the  King  his 
master  and  all  princes  who  loved  the  ancient  religion." 
The  Queen  answered,  after  asking  him  how  he  knew  so 
much  about  what  went  on  in  the  private  council  of  the 
King;  "in  the  first  place  he  ought  to  know  that  people  who 
would  be  willing  to  betray  their  royal  master  in  that  way 
would  probably  not  tell  the  truth.  These  busybodies  were 
trying  to  make  trouble  between  his  master  and  her  and  if 
he  was  a  loyal  servant  he  wouldn't  hesitate  to  tell  their 
names  because  they  were  doing  as  much  harm  to  the  King 
his  master  as  they  were  doing  to  the  King  their  own  master  ; 
for  the  war  which  they  were  trying  to  stir  up  would  be 
equally  dangerous  to  both.  Although  she  was  a  woman  and 
the  King  was  a  young  child,  nevertheless  France  was  not 
lacking  in  forces  and  in  means  to  defend  herself  and  to 
resist  those  who  might  wish  to  attack  her."  The  Ambas- 
sador replied  that  this  was  only  the  gossip  of  the  pages. 

'  Conde,  III,  93.    Arch.  C.  VI,  30. 


MURDER  AND  RIOT  233 

The  Queen  said  that  it  could  not  have  been  that  because  no 
pages  were  present  in  the  conference.  The  Ambassador 
then  ventured  to  animadvert  upon  the  education  of  the 
King  and  his  brother,  to  whom  people  were  allowed  to  say 
anything  they  chose  in  regard  to  religion.  The  Queen 
became  furious,  sajdng  that  it  was  none  of  his  business. 
She  knew  that  his  only  object  was  to  stir  up  trouble  between 
his  master  and  her.  Her  children  were  so  obedient  that 
they  told  her  everything  that  anybody  said  to  them  .  .  . 
and  she  would  bring  them  up  in  such  a  way  that  every 
person  of  a  good  heart  would  some  day  feel  toward  her  the 
greatest  gratitude.  But  though  she  spoke  so  sharply  to  an 
Ambassador  she  thought  insolent,  Catherine  was  evidently 
a  little  nervous  about  the  result,  for  she  inamediately  wrote 
to  the  French  Ambassador  a  letter  in  which  she  insisted 
upon  her  great  friendship  for  the  King  of  Spain  and  her 
confidence  in  his  friendship  toward  her.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  Catherine  was  quite  sincere 
in  the  assurance  she  gave  in  regard  to  the  education  of  her 
children  being  quite  in  accord  with  what  the  King  of  Spain 
would  like.  She  herself  had  given  the  little  King  a  Hugue- 
not book  of  psalms,  telling  him  not  to  speak  of  it  to  any- 
body. But  the  boy  showed  it  to  his  tutor,  Cypierre.  He 
took  it  away  from  him,  telling  him  at  the  same  time  that 
a  man  ought  not  to  obey  women.  He  then  reported  the 
incident  to  the  Constable.  Catherine  was  very  much  en- 
raged. She  dismissed  Cypierre  and  appointed  the  Prince 
de  la  Roche-sur-Yon  tutor  of  the  young  King  and  joined 
to  him  the  mother-in-law  of  the  Prince  of  Conde  and  one 
of  her  women-in-waiting,  Madame  de  Crussol,  two  ladies 
who  were  most  pronounced  Huguenots.  Little  Charles  IX 
was  very  much  attached  to  his  tutor  and  on  the  night  when 
the  change  was  made  would  scarcely  eat  anything;  saying 
when  his  mother  tried  to  comfort  him  that  he  didn't  want 
any  other  tutor  except  Monsieur  Cypierre.  The  next  morn- 
ing the  new  tutor,  after  having  saluted  the  King,  asked  him 

'  Conde,  II,  601 ;  Letts.  I,  613. 


234  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

to  come  and  play  in  the  grand  rooms  as  he  was  accustomed 
to  do,  to  which  he  responded  that  he  didn't  want  to  play, 
and  went  to  mass.  He  proved  very  recalcitrant  to  the  new 
atmosphere.  While  preaching  was  going  on  in  the  room 
of  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  a  most  devoted  adherent  of  the 
Reformed  religion,  the  King  happened  to  pass  by  the  door. 
He  stopped  and  knocked  three  or  four  times  until  the  door 
was  opened.  Standing  in  the  doorway  he  said:  "Don't 
make  any  mistake  about  it;  if  you  keep  on  preaching  this 
way  you  will  every  one  of  you  be  burnt."  ^ 

But  his  younger  brother,  the  future  Henry  III,  was  very 
much  less  resistant  to  the  influences  which  were  now  en- 
tirely prevalent  at  Court.  His  governor,  Carnavalet,  was 
a  Huguenot  and  the  boy  formed  the  habit  of  going  around 
saying  to  everyone,  "I  am  the  little  Huguenot,  but  by  and 
by  I  will  be  the  big  Huguenot."  He  did  his  best  to  convert 
his  younger  sister,  Margaret,  who  wrote  in  her  memoirs: 

"My  brother,  afterwards  the  King  of  France,  could  not  avoid 
being  impressed  by  the  unhappy  Hugonoterie.  He  was  always 
urging  me  to  change  my  religion,  often  threw  my  prayerbooks 
in  the  fire  and  instead  of  them  gave  me  psalms  and  Huguenot 
prayers,  compelling  me  to  carry  them.  I  answered  his  threats 
by  bursting  into  tears,  because  I  was  at  the  very  tender  age  of 
seven  or  eight  years.  He  answered  that  he  could  have  me 
whipped  or  killed  if  he  wanted.  I  answered  him  that  he  could 
have  me  whipped  or  have  me  killed  if  he  chose  to,  but  that  I 
would  suffer  everything  that  could  be  done  to  me  rather  than 
damn  my  soul."* 

While  it  is  not  probable  that  Catherine  actually  con- 
templated bringing  her  children  up  as  Huguenots,  it  is  quite 
certain  Coligny  was  right  when  he  told  the  English  Ambas- 
sador about  this  time  that  the  Queen  Mother  was  anxious 
to  have  such  modifications  and  liberties  established  in  the 
Church  as  might  content  the  Protestants  and  bring  about 
the  reunion  of  Christendom.  It  was  to  help  this  plan  that 
she  restored  Cypierre  as  one  of  the  tutors  of  the  King, 

^Neg.  Tosc.  Ill,  471,  Cal.  F.  1562,  p.  384. 

*  A.  N.  K.  1571  f.  71.  1497  Feb.  3,  9,  Margaret  6. 


MURDER  AND  RIOT  235 

ordered  all  her  waiting  women  to  live  in  the  same  religion 
she  did  or  they  would  be  dismissed  and  stopped  all  Calvinist 
preaching  in  the  private  apartments  of  the  palace.  The 
concessions  she  wished  made  to  the  schismatics  are  un- 
doubtedly described  in  a  letter .  whir-h  was  written  to  the 
Pope  about  this  time  by  the  Bishop  of  Valence,  entitled: 
"Remonstrances  made  to  Pope  Pius  IV  by  the  King, 
Charles  IX."  ^ 

It  besought  the  Holy  Father,  the  common  Father  of  all, 
to  help  the  Queen  keep  the  realm  completely  under  the 
obedience  of  the  King  and  at  the  same  time  retain  it 
under  obedience  to  the  Holy  See.  It  was  the  easier  to  do 
this  because  there  were  not  in  France  either  anabaptists, 
or  any  heretics  who  refused  to  accept  the  first  six  General 
Councils  of  the  Church.  But  the  consciences  of  those  who 
had  left  the  Church  and  the  consciences  of  many  who  had 
not  yet  left  it,  were  troubled  by  three  points:  First,  the  use 
of  images;  and  the  Holy  Father  was  asked  to  order  that 
they  should  be  removed  from  the  altars  and  put  on  the  out- 
side of  the  churches.  Second,  the  administration  of  the 
Holy  Sacraments;  and  the  Pope  was  asked  to  consent  to 
the  omission  of  the  exorcism  and  some  of  the  prayers  in 
baptism.  In  regard  to  the  communion,  the  Pope  was 
asked  to  consent  that  it  should  be  administered  in  public 
always  after  the  recital  of  prayers  in  the  vulgar  tongue; 
that  the  procession  of  the  holy  sacrament  when  the  host 
was  borne  in  the  monstrance  through  the  streets  should  be 
omitted  and  that  an  explanation  should  be  made  of  the 
mass,  bringing  out  its  spiritual  meaning,  emphasizing,  for 
the  sake  of  those  who  doubted,  the  words  of  the  mass  which 
called  it  the  sacrifice  of  praise.  Finally,  the  Pope  was 
asked  to  borrow  from  the  schismatics  their  custom  of 
singing  the  psalms  in  public  worship  and  making  their 
prayers  in  the  language  understood  by  the  people.  If  this 
were  done  twice  a  day,  many  of  them  would  be  brought 
back.    "If  the  Holy  Father  will  by  his  authority  restore 

»Cal.  F.  1562,  p.  502,  526,  545,  546;  Arch.  C.  VI,  35;  Conde,  II,  20. 


236  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

these  ancient  customs  of  the  Church  alongside  those  which 
have  more  recently  been  received,  this  realm  will  always 
remain  as  faithful  to  the  obedience  of  the  Holy  See  as  it  has 
been  in  the  past,  and  the  Queen,  by  her  vigilance,  prudence 
and  goodness,  will  reunite  in  time  her  divided  people,  or 
at  least  those  separated  from  the  Church  will  remain  so 
small  in  number  that  they  will  have  no  means  of  increasing 
and  it  will  be  much  easier  to  bring  back  peace  and  union." 
Some  even  more  striking  concessions  to  the  Protestants 
than  these,  were  to  be  proposed  by  the  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many, but  there  was  little  hope  of  getting  anything  of  the 
kind  endorsed  by  the  Roman  curia,  or  accepted  by  the  ortho- 
dox party  of  France.  Neither  does  it  seem  probable  that 
any  conceivable  concession  could  then  have  healed  the 
schism  between  Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics.^ 

The  party  of  orthodoxy  in  France  set  itself  to  resist  to 
the  utmost  of  its  power  the  January  Edict  of  concession 
and  conciliation,  which,  after  the  first  flush  of  gratitude, 
the  Reformed  churches  came  to  regard  as  entirely  inade- 
quate. Before  a  royal  edict  could  become  law,  it  must  be 
registered  by  the  parlements  of  the  kingdom;  though  they 
could  not  refuse  to  register  for  more  than  a  certain  time. 
All  the  parlements  registered  the  Edict  of  January  except 
those  of  Provence  and  Paris.  A  royal  emissary  forced  the 
Parlement  of  Provence  to  give  way,  and,  after  a  long 
struggle,  the  Parlement  of  Paris  finally  registered  the  Edict 
under  protest. 

*Conde,  11,562. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   LINES   DRAWN   FOR    CIVIL   WAR.      CATHERINE   BETWEEN 
GUISE  AND    CONDE 

The  final  registering  of  the  tolerant  Edict  of  January 
did  not  bring  tranquillity,  for  before  that  time,  legal  and 
diplomatic  opposition  to  the  policy  of  conciliation  was 
beginning  to  give  place  to  armed  opposition,  and  civil  war 
was  in  sight. 

This  civil  war  was  not,  however,  between  those  factions 
of  the  nobility  of  France  whose  zealous  strife  for  power  had 
started  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  The 
new  element  of  difference  of  opinion  about  religion  had 
brought  a  new  line  of  cleavage.  The  Bourbon-Mont- 
morency faction  was  hopelessly  divided.  The  heads  of  the 
two  families  and  a  part  of  their  adherents  were  opposed 
by  the  younger  members  of  the  two  great  houses,  who 
carried  with  them  the  bulk  of  their  friends  and  vassals. 
The  King  of  Navarre  and  his  brother,  the  Cardinal  of 
Bourbon,  were  in  sharp  opposition  to  their  younger  brother, 
the  Prince  of  Conde,  and  the  Constable  had  reached  the 
point  where  he  was  even  willing  to  take  arms  against  the 
policy  supported  by  his  three  nephews.  Admiral  Coligny, 
the  Captain  General  of  the  French  infantry  d'Andelot,  and 
the  Cardinal  of  Chatillon. 

While  their  ancient  adversaries  were  thus  divided,  the 
four  brothers  of  the  family  of  Guise  with  all  their  ad- 
herents remained  solidly  united.  They  determined  to  carry 
farther  their  successful  policy  of  dividing  possible  opponents 
of  their  cause.  In  case  civil  war  came,  the  Huguenots 
would  ask  help  not  only  from  the  English  but  also  from 
the  Lutheran  Princes  of  Germany.  But  some  of  the 
Lutheran  theologians  were  strongly  opposed  to  the  theology 

237 


238  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

of  Calvin ;  indeedv  some  of  them  seemed  more  inclined  to 
irreconcilable  hostility  to  Calvinists  than  to  Roman  Cath- 
olics. The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  already  shown  his 
willingness  to  make  restatements  of  orthodox  doctrines  and 
modifications  of  ancient  practices  which  might  render  it 
easier  for  Lutherans  to  reunite  with  the  Church  and  the 
Duke  of  Guise  was  anxious  that  the  theological  differences 
between  Calvinists  and  Lutherans  should  be  deepened  so 
that,  in  case  it  came  to  arms  in  France,  as  many  Lutheran 
Princes  as  possible  might  refuse  to  allow  the  levy  in  their 
states  of  mercenaries  for  the  Huguenot  army.^ 

Duke  Christopher  of  Wiirtemberg,  in  his  youth,  served 
for  eight  years  in  the  army  of  Francis  I  at  the  head  of  two 
thousand  lansquenets  recruited  in  his  father's  duchy.  He 
and  the  young  Duke  of  Guise  had  become  friends  during 
the  campaigns  in  Italy.  For  some  months  the  Duke  of 
Guise  had  been  carrying  on  an  active  correspondence  with 
his  old  comrade  in  arms,  in  which  the  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg 
showed  the  evident  hope  of  converting  his  friend  to  Luther- 
anism.  An  interview  between  the  Duke  and  the  four 
brothers  of  the  house  of  Guise  was  arranged  at  Saverne, 
''  not  far  from  their  princely  seat  of  Joinville.  It  was  most 
friendly  and  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  wrote  to  Cardinal 
Borromeo  about  his  hopes  of  bringing  back  some  of  the 
Lutherans  to  the  Church.  Duke  Christopher,  in  an 
account  of  the  interview  written  in  his  own  hand,  records 
that  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  said,  "I  have  read  tne  confes- 
sion of  Augsburg  and  the  three  chief  Lutheran  theologians. 
I  approve  entirely  of  their  doctrines.  But  I  must  conceal 
my  opinion  for  a  while  in  order  to  gain  others  whose  faith 
is  feeble."  The  Cardinal  and  the  Duke  of  Guise  denied  all 
responsibility  for  the  past  persecutions  and  "They  then 
gave  me  their  hands,  promising,  on  their  honor  as  princes 
and  their  hopes  of  salvation,  not  to  persecute,  either  openly 
or  secretly,  the  adherents  of  the  new  doctrine."  ^ 

'Montaigne,  I,  XXVII;  de  Thou.  III.  128. 

'Bull.  Sec.  Prot.  24,  pp.  71,  113,  209,  499.    Arch.  C.  VI,  59,  Puchesse  (2), 
Bull.  Soc.  Prot.  pntd.  IV,  184. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  239 

This  absence  from  the  center  of  intrigue,  had  emphasized 
the  fact  that  the  Guise  held  the  balance  of  power  among 
the  divided  famihes  of  Bourbon  and  Montmorency.  The 
Duke  was  scarcely  back  from  Saverne  before  the  King  of 
Navarre,  irritated  by  the  efforts  of  his  younger  brother  to 
keep  up  Reformed  worship  at  Paris  in  spite  of  the  desperate 
hostility  of  the  mass  of  the  population,  sent  for  Guise  to 
join  him  with  a  strong  escort,  "in  order  to  take  means  to 
reverse  and  destroy  all  that  has  been  done  in  contravention 
of  the  ('persecuting')  Edict  of  July."  Catherine  heard  of 
this  summons  and  feared  that  her  policy  of  conciliation  was 
to  be  destroyed.  She  sent  Guise  word  not  to  go  to  Paris, 
but  to  come  without  any  forces,  straight  to  her  near 
Meaux,  and  her  word  was  backed  by  a  letter  from  the  King. 
Guise  started,  ostensibly  for  court,  attended  by  a  strong 
and  heavily  armed  escort.  His  journev  was  scarcely  begun, 
when  he  became  involved  on  the  first  ofMarch,  1562,  in  an 
affray  which  started  the  flames  of  a  civiJ.  war  that  blazed 
or  smouldered  for  more  than  thirty  years.^ 

The  Huguenots  spoke  of  this  affray  as  the  Massacre 
of  Vassy,  carefully  planned  by  the  Duke  of  Guise  to  show 
that  the  Roman  Catholics  of  the  kingdom  would  not  permit 
them  to  enjoy  the  liberties  promised  by  the  Edict  of 
January.  The  Duke  of  Guise  said  his  remonstrances  with 
an  illegal  assembly,  containing  many  of  his  vassals,  had 
resulted  in  a  violent  attack  upon  him,  which  had  unfortu- 
nately compelled  his  gentlemen  and  guards  to  kill  a  number 
of  people.  The  truth  lies  between  these  two  accounts.  It 
is  very  improbable  that  the  Duke  of  Guise  intended  before- 
hand to  attack  the  worshippers  at  Vassy.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  equally  improbable  that  the  unarmed  assembly 
with  many  women  and  children  among  them,  attacked  the 
Duke  and  his  strong  escort.  Many  episodes  of  his  life  show 
that  Francis  of  Guise  was  not  a  cruel  man,  but  he  had  more 
than  his  share  of  that  passionate  pride  in  resenting  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  insult  which  was  characteristic  of 

•Pasquier  (2),  IV,  1.  14,  ctd.  Bouille,  II,  170. 


240  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

all  nobles  of  the  time.  A  short  time  before,  the  Huguenots 
of  Vassy  had  hooted  and  driven  away  the  Bishop  of  Chalons, 
sent  by  the  Duke's  mother  to  preach  to  them  and  to  bring 
them  back  to  what  she  thought  their  duty.  When  Guise 
learned  that,  at  the  very  moment  of  his  passing  through  a 
city,  under  his  brother's  jurisdiction,^  a  service  which  he 
regarded  as  insolent  was  being  held,  he  sent  in  an  imperious 
mood  to  summon  the  heretics  to  his  presence  for  reproof. 
The  Huguenots  of  Vassy  by  their  own  account  of  their 
reception  of  the  Bishop  of  Chalons,  were  not  accustomed 
to  take  reproof  very  humbly.  A  quarrel  arose  between  the 
worshippers  and  the  Duke's  gentlemen.  When  the  Duke 
arrived  at  the  scene,  fighting  had  begun  and  his  autocratic 
temper  and  the  hatred  of  his  guards  and  servitors  for  the 
Huguenot  heretics,  account  for  the  forty-five  killed  and 
many  more  wounded.  That  the  worshipping  assembly 
could  not  really  have  been  very  menacing  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  only  one  man  was  killed  among  the  Duke's  fol- 
lowing.   It  was  not  a  fight  but  a  massacre. 

Neither  side  believed  that  Vassy  was  the  outcome  of 
chance  and  passion.  It  made  Guise  the  idol  of  all  who 
wanted  to  exterminate  heresy  by  the  sword,  but  Duke 
Christopher  of  Wiirtemberg  wrote  at  the  end  of  his  notes 
of  the  interview  of  Saverne,  "May  God  be  the  avenger  of 
guile  and  perjury!"  All  over  France,  as  if  moved  by  a 
common  impulse,  the  Huguenot  nobility  began  to  gather 
in  armed  bands.  The  leaders  of  the  Huguenot  churches 
held  a  conference  and  sent  Beza  to  demand  justice  from 
the  King  against  the  Duke  of  Guise.  When  he  made  his 
demand  in  the  presence  of  the  Queen  Mother  and  the  King 
of  Navarre,  Navarre  could  not  repress  his  anger.  He  said 
no  one  should  touch  a  finger  of  the  Duke  of  Guise,  and 
accused  the  members  of  the  churches  of  going  to  their 
preachings  armed,  to  which  Beza  answered,  "Arms  in  the 
hands  of  wise  men  bring  peace."  "Sire,"  he  added,  "it  is 
the  part  of  the  Church  of  God  in  whose  name  I  speak,  to 

*BouiUe.  II.  171. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  241 

endure  blows  and  not  to  give  them,  but  I  beg  you  to  re- 
member that  anvil  has  worn  out  many  hammers."  ^ 

After  the  affray  at  Vassy,  Guise  moved  slowly  along  the 
roads  which  led  both  to  court  and  to  Paris,  and  at  his 
chateau  of  Nanteuil  on  the  upper  Marne  he  met  all  the 
members  of  his  family,  the  Constable  and  three  of  his  sons, 
the  Marshal  St.  Andre  and  other  great  nobles  of  the  anti- 
Huguenot  party.  There  he  received  another  message  from 
Catherine  urging  him  to  come  to  Monceaux,  where  the  King 
was,  and  forbidding  him  to  go  to  Paris.  Guise  answered 
that  he  was  expecting  friends  to  visit  him  and  could  not 
come  to  Monceaux.  A  few  days  later,  undoubtedly  by  the 
counsel  of  the  chiefs  of  his  party,  he  set  out  for  Paris. 

The  ability,  the  reputation  and  the  personality  of  the 
Duke  of  Guise  combined  to  mark  him  out  as  a  splendid 
leader  for  civil  war.  Even  before  Vassy  he  had  been  the 
idol  of  the  populace  of  Paris.  One  of  his  gentlemen  de- 
scribed Guise's  entry  into  the  city  about  a  year  before: 

"To  visit  the  King  he  rode  his  horse,  which  was  called  le 
Moret,  a  splendid  black  animal  with  a  haughty  gait,  covered 
with  a  big  horsecloth  of  black  velvet  broidered  with  silver.  The 
Duke  wore  a  doublet  and  trousers  of  crimson  satin,  a  loose  cloak 
with  a  cape  of  black,  banded  with  crimson  and  a  bonnet  of 
black  velvet  with  a  splendid  red  plume.  He  looked  among  his 
three  or  four  hundred  gentlemen  like  a  huge  oak  among  the  other 
trees  of  the  forest.  When  it  had  been  noised  about  the  city 
that  he  had  arrived,  the  people  so  pressed  upon  his  path  that  it 
took  him  nearly  an  hour  to  reach  the  royal  palace,  because  the 
crowd  filled  up  the  road.  The  cheers  of  the  people  applauded 
his  coming  with  the  most  extreme  joy,  showing  the  confidence 
and  trust  which  they  had  in  him." 

The  news  of  the  affair  at  Vassy  raised  this  old  popularity 
of  Guise  in  Paris  to  the  highest  pitch.  When  he  entered 
through  the  Porte  St.  Denis  on  the  16th  of  March,  1562, 
accompanied  by  the  chief  lords  of  the  Catholic  party  and 
a  train  of  two  thousand  horses,  he  was  met  by  the  un- 

*De  la  Noue,  546.    Hist,  Ecc,  II,  7. 


242  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

bounded  enthusiasm  of  a  huge  crowd.  The  city  magistrates 
received  him  and  the  prevost  of  the  merchants  delivered  an 
oration,  hailing  him  as  the  defender  of  the  Faith  and  offering 
him,  in  the  name  of  the  city  of  Paris,  twenty  thousand  men 
and  as  much  money  as  he  needed  to  save  religion.^ 

The  next  day  three  of  the  Lorraine  brothers,  the  Con- 
stable and  the  Marshals  Brissac,  Thermes  and  St.  Andre 
wrote  to  the  Queen  Mother,  saying  that  they  had  intended 
to  come  to  kiss  her  hand  at  Fontainebleau,  but  the  chief 
merchants  of  Paris  were  terrorized  by  the  Prince  of  Conde 
and  the  Huguenots.  They  would  therefore  remain  to  pro- 
tect them.  They  asked  that  the  King  of  Navarre  should 
come  to  help  them  in  restoring  order  and  begged  her  not 
to  believe  the  false  reports  that  they  intended  to  do  any- 
thing against  her  authority.  At  the  same  time  they  wrote 
the  Spanish  Ambassador  that  the  King  of  Navarre  had 
"lifted  the  mask"  and  was  acting  entirely  with  them  and 
asked  him  to  urge  the  King  of  Spain  "to  do  everything  to 
gratify  the  King  of  Navarre  in  order  to  keep  him  faithful 
to  the  good  cause."  Catherine  found  herself  in  an  extremely 
difficult  position.  The  Triumvirate  had  finally  gained  the 
King  of  Navarre  and  felt  strong  enough  to  show  its  hand. 
The  futile  excuse  of  Guise  only  emphasized  his  open  dis- 
obedience to  her  commands  and  the  flattery  of  the  marshal's 
message  was  so  obvious  as  to  be  almost  mockery.  She  saw 
the  prospect  of  falling  again  under  the  dominance  of  the 
Guise.  Even  before  the  Duke  came  to  Paris,  she  had  been 
very  much  afraid  of  his  faction  and  the  English  Ambassador 
reported  "the  Queen  Mother  does  not  trust  any  of  the 
papists  and  assists  the  Protestants."  Indeed  she  went  much 
further  in  this  direction  than  the  English  Ambassador  then 
knew,  for  she  sent  to  the  Huguenot  chief,  the  Prince  of 
Conde,  messengers  carrying  three  notes.  The  first  told  him 
"that  she  was  not  more  certain  of  herself  than  she  was  of 
him  and  that  he  could  look  upon  her  as  if  she  was  his  own 
mother."    She  begged  him,  in  a  note  ending,  "burn  this 

'Brant.  IV,  233;  Bouille,  II,  179. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  243 

instantly,"  to  "save  the  children,  the  mother  and  the  realm," 
and  she  added  to  the  third  note  that  "if  it  was  not  for  the 
trust  she  had  in  God  and  the  assurance  that  he  would  aid 
her  to  preserve  the  reahn,  she  should  be  more  cast  down 
even  than  she  was,"  .  .  .  but  "I  hope  that  we  shall  soon 
remedy  all  these  troubles  with  your  good  counsel  and  aid." 
She  iiad  also  sent  word  to  Admiral  Coligny  to  seize  Orleans, 
Rouen  and  other  cities.^ 

Frightened  as  she  was,  Catherine  tried  to  carry  things 
off  with  an  appearance  of  courage.  She  asked  her  waiting- 
women  one  day  what  they  were  saying  in  Paris.  They 
replied  that  the  whole  city  was  against  her  and  that  every- 
body called  the  Chancellor  a  heretic.  "She  laughed  loudly 
and  answered  that  the  Chancellor  was  the  best  man  in  the 
world.  Still  laughing,  she  asked  what  was  said  of  the  Duke 
of  Guise  and  his  followers  and  if  he  was  coming  to  take  the 
government  away  from  her?"  So  that  her  conduct  made 
the  Spanish  Ambassador,  even  without  knowing  anything 
of  the  secret  messages  to  Conde,  believe  that  he  was  staying 
in  Paris  by  her  orders  to  balance  the  power  of  the  Guise.^ 
For  even  at  this  early  stage  in  her  career  as  a  politician, 
Catherine  began  to  follow  what  afterwards  became  the 
dominant  idea  of  her  usual  policy,  the  attempt  to  neutralize 
factions  by  balancing  one  against  the  other  and  so  trying 
to  establish  her  own  and  her  son's  absolute  control  of  the 
state.  The  policy  of  reconciliation  which  she  cleverly  forced 
on  the  Guise  after  the  conspiracy  of  Amboise,  ought  not  to 
be  regarded  as  part  of  this  later  policy  of  "balance."  It 
was  rather  a  shrewd  judgment  to  which  she  hoped  to  rally 
the  chief  elements  of  the  state.  But  now  that  this  attempt 
at  reconciliation  had  broken  down  completely,  Catherine, 
still  a  timid  novice  at  the  game  of  high  politics,  began  to 
see  dimly  the  possibility  of  a  "policy  of  balance."  Ap- 
parently she  thought  that  the  only  practicable  method  of 

'B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6611.  f.  20;  A.  N.  K.  1496,  f.  52,  1500,  June  21.  Cal.  F. 
Mar.  9,  20.  Letts.  I,  282,  283.  B.  N.  It.  1723  f.  176,  1725  f.  109,  Jaa.  25, 
Mar.  8,  1563. 

»A.  N.  K.  1497,  Mar.  25. 


244  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

blocking  the  Guise  from  regaining  that  control  of  the 
government  from  which  she  had  suffered  during  the  reign 
of  her  oldest  son,  was  to  balance  their  faction  by  another 
faction. 

Hypothetical  history  is  not  very  profitable,  but  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  this  policy  was  the  only  possible  one; 
certainly  it  may  be  doubted  whether  circumstances  forced 
it  upon  her  as  anything  more  than  a  temporary  expedient. 
Outside  of  the  followers  of  the  younger  Bourbons,  the 
Chatillons  and  the  Reformed  churches,  there  were  plenty 
of  people  in  France  who  distrusted  the  lead  of  the  Guise. 
Such  a  one,  for  example,  was  Morvillier,  Bishop  of  Orleans, 
and  ex-royal  Ambassador  to  Venice,  who  wrote  in  a  private 
letter  the  end  of  November,  1560,  his  dislike  of  these  Italians 
and  Spaniards  who  were  turning  France  aside  from  her  true 
national  policy.  There  was  a  knot  of  these  men,  for  the 
most  part  old  servants  of  the  state,  whose  opinions  can  be 
seen  in  the  letters  addressed  to  Bernard  Bochetel,  who  had 
been  a  secretary  of  Francis  I  and  Henry  II.  Although  unor- 
ganized and  unled,  they  had  a  certain  unconscious  agree- 
ment on  what  might  be  called  a  national  policy.  They 
were  not  heretics,  though  some  of  them  were  accused  of 
being  heretics,  but  they  were  very  much  opposed  to  the 
extreme  papal  claims  of  control  over  the  Church  of  France. 
They  were  strongly  anti-Spanish  and  did  not  want  to  see 
France  weakened  in  the  face  of  Spain  by  civil  war.  This 
nationalist,  or  Crown,  group  included  such  men  as  Claude 
de  I'Aubespine,  de  Noailles,  Bishop  of  Acqs,  the  Bishop  of 
Angouleme,  the  Sieur  de  Lisle,  Herault  de  Boistaille,  Lansac, 
du  Ferrier,  Bourdin,  etc.  In  these  experienced  servants  of 
the  state  and  such  of  the  high  and  the  lesser  nobility  and 
the  burghers  as  could  have  been  rallied  round  them,  lay  the 
possibility  of  making  the  stable  assertion  of  Catherine's 
influence  over  the  destinies  of  France  constructive.  To  do 
what  Elizabeth  did  and  unite  against  the  forces  that  made 
for  disunion  and  civil  war,  a  solid  middle-of-the-road  party 
who  would  follow  the  cry  "France  first!"  was,  it  may 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  245 

at  least  be  suspected,  an  open  way  of  safety  for  Catherine 
and  for  France.  But  to  take  it  she  must  have  had  in  her 
heart  some  touch  of  that  love  of  country  which  underlay 
all  the  tyranny,  caprice  and  vanity  of  Elizabeth.  And  why 
should  Catherine,  an  Italian,  born  of  an  Italian  generation 
in  which  the  passion  of  national  patriotism  was  not  active, 
love  France  as  Elizabeth  loved  England?  If  such  a  way 
was  open,  Catherine  would  hardly  have  seen  it.  Her  train- 
ing and  her  character  naturally  led  her  to  feel  more  and 
more  strongly  that  no  other  policy  was  possible  for  her 
except  that  policy  of  "balance"  which,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  all  observers  hostile  or  friendly,  she  never  up 
to  the  end  of  her  life,  definitely  abandoned.^ 

The  more  or  less  prevalent  idea  that  she  adopted  this 
policy  for  abstract  reasons  as  a  result  of  her  careful  study 
of  the  teachings  of  Machiavelli  on  statecraft,  is  mistaken. 
In  the  first  place,  if  she  had  followed  his  teaching  she  never 
would  have  adopted  the  policy  of  balance,  for  he  distinctly 
disapproves  of  it  as  dangerous.  And  in  the  second  place, 
although  the  Prince  was  dedicated  to  her  father,  there  is 
no  sign  in  all  her  letters  that  Catherine  ever  read  it.  If 
she  did,  certainly  she  profited  very  little  by  it,  for  she 
repeatedly  violated  its  fundamental  maxims.  She  began 
to  adopt  timidly  the  policy  of  "balance"  because  it  seemed 
to  her  the  only  possible  policy.^ 

For  success  in  the  coming  civil  war,  it  was  evident  that 
there  were  two  chief  points  to  be  gained  at  the  start:  first, 
the  control  of  the  person  of  the  King,  and  second,  the  pos- 
session of  Paris.  The  Huguenot  party,  assembling  under 
the  lead  of  Conde,  felt  at  this  time  that  they  had  the  support 
of  the  King,  but  before  Conde's  correspondence  with  Cath- 
erine was  over,  it  was  quite  evident  that  they  could  not 
hold  the  city  of  Paris.  The  entire  population  outside  the 
higher  burghers,  was  strongly  against  them.  One  of  his 
captains  wrote,  "Conde  could  no  more  fight  Guise  in  Paris 

»B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  394  f.  21.  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  81. 
•Van  Dyke,  review  (2),  Leipziger  V.  J.  Schrift. 


246  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

than  a  fly  could  attack  an  elephant."  The  bulk  of  the 
nobles  of  the  Huguenot  party  had  estates  in  Normandy 
or  south  of  the  river  Loire.  The  Triumvirate  were,  there- 
fore, able  to  rally  quickly  a  much  larger  number  of  the 
nobility  of  their  faction  than  their  opponents  could  get 
together.  Before  the  end  of  the  month  this  fact  was  evident 
to  such  different  observers  as  the  English  Ambassador  and 
the  Nuncio,  and  Catherine  began  to  regret  that  she 
had  put  herself  so  completely  into  the  hands  of  the  Hugue- 
nots. She  sent,  therefore,  a  fourth  message  asking  Conde 
to  withdraw  from  Paris  and  when  he  complied  on  the  23rd 
of  March,  she  wrote  telling  him  that  she  would  never  forget 
"that  which  you  do  for  me  and  if  I  die  before  I  have  the 
means  of  showing  my  gratitude  as  fully  as  I  wish,  I  will 
leave  word  to  my  children  to  show  it."  This  feeling  that 
perhaps  she  had  made  a  mistake  in  relying  upon  the  Protes- 
tant party  which  seemed  for  the  present  to  be  the  weaker, 
was  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  the  Triumvirate  sent 
Cardinal  Guise  to  "promise  and  assure  the  Queen  that  they 
were  not  considering  anything  in  regard  to  the  government 
nor  in  prejudice  of  her  authority,  but  that  they  were  only 
anxious  about  the  preservation  of  religion."  ^ 

The  Catholic  nobles,  now  secure  in  the  possession  of 
Paris,  determined  to  make  sure  also  of  the  second  great 
card  in  the  game,  the  King.  They  left  Paris  with  a  force 
which  they  knew  Conde  could  not  face  and  marched  to 
Fontainebleau,  where  the  Queen  was.  Catherine  knew  of 
their  approach  and  was  strongly  urged  by  the  Chancellor 
de  I'Hospital  and  her  intimate,  the  Seigneur  de  Soubise,  to 
withdraw  to  the  city  of  Orleans,  some  fifty  miles  to  the 
southwest  and  close  to  the  Huguenot  country,  where  they 
would  be  able  to  gather  forces  to  defend  her  from  the  other 
faction.  She  apparently  hesitated,  talking  over  the  matter 
for  several  hours  at  a  time  in  her  private  cabinet,  until  they 
thought  they  were  about  to  gain  her  consent.    On  the  very 

'De  la  Noue,  551,  Arch.  C.  VI,  54,  Cal.  F.  App.  1.  Letts.  I,  283.  A.N. 
K.  1497.  Mar.  25. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  247 

day  when  news  came  that  the  Triumvirate  were  advancing 
from  Paris,  Soubise  lingered  at  Fontainebleau  as  long  as  he 
dared,  in  the  vain  hope  of  finally  persuading  her.  The 
Triumvirate  when  they  arrived,  were  able  to  pay  less  atten- 
tion to  her  hesitation.  Catherine  would  have  liked  to 
remain  where  she  was,  occupying  a  position  independent 
of  either  faction,  but  they  insisted  that  the  King  must  go 
for  his  own  safety  to  Paris,  and  they  took  him  in  spite  of 
his  tears.  Conde  had  lost  both  the  capital  and  the  King, 
and  when  at  last  the  scattered  forces  of  the  Huguenots  were 
mustered  under  his  command  it  was  too  late  to  act.^ 

The  most  important  contingent  that  rode  into  Conde's 
camp  at  Mans  was  headed  by  Admiral  Coiigny.  The  man 
who  was  to  be  for  ten  years,  not  only  the  real  leader  but 
almost  the  common  father  of  the  Huguenots,  had  long 
hesitated  before  he  would  consent  to  civil  war.  History 
shows  no  better  example  of  the  old  saying  that  those  who 
are  the  last  to  draw  the  sword  are  often  the  last  to  sheathe 
it.  When  he  was  finally  induced  by  the  tears  and  the 
reproaches  of  his  wife  to  join  in  the  defense  of  his  persecuted 
brethren,  the  Admiral's  iron  will,  military  experience,  and 
piety,  made  him  from  the  very  first  the  soul  of  the  party. 
Realizing  that  the  Huguenots  had  lost  the  chance  for  the 
offensive,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  occupy  the  nearest  strong 
city  and  stand  on  the  defensive,  until  the  Reformed 
churches  and  the  Huguenot  nobility  could  gather  an  army. 
The  strategic  line  for  them  to  hold  was  the  line  of  the  River 
Loire,  with  the  city  of  Orleans  for  their  stronghold.  His 
younger  brother,  d'Andelot,  was  sent  forward  to  seize  the 
gates  on  the  second  of  April,  1562.  Conde  and  the  Admiral 
were  still  thirty  miles  off  and  the  Triumvirate  was  rushing 
troops  towards  Orleans.  Hard-riding  messengers,  sent  one 
after  another,  urged  the  Huguenots  to  hurry.  A  desperate 
call  met  them  about  twenty  miles  from  the  city  and  the 
Prince,  with  some  two  thousand  horse  behind  him,  masters 

*  Soubise,  Memoires  Jeanne  d'Albret  is  untrustworthy.  Van  Dyke  Re- 
view (4);  Rev.  Hist.  Castelnau,  85;  Conde,  II,  197,  228. 


248  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

and  valets  together,  "started  at  full  gallop.  Great  numbers 
of  people  were  on  the  roads  going  to  Paris  and  seeing  this 
mysterious  race,  they  thought  all  the  fools  in  France  were 
riding  on  a  wager,  for  there  was  as  yet  no  news  of  civil 
war  and  they  roared  with  merriment  at  seeing  valets  rolling 
on  the  ground,  horses  broken  down,  valises  split  open,  while 
the  riders  themselves  broke  into  repeated  peals  of  laughter." 
Meantime  the  general  of  artillery  who  had  been  sent  by 
the  Triumvirate  to  occupy  Orleans,  was  jogging  along  an- 
other road  on  a  mule  at  the  rate  of  eighteen  miles  a  day, 
either,  as  the  Spanish  Ambassador  suggests,  because  he  was 
a  stupid  old  man,  or  because  he  was  in  his  heart  a  Huguenot. 
The  greatest  of  the  civil  wars  of  France  opened  with  this 
grotesque  scene.^ 

In  the  shelter  of  the  walls  of  Orleans,  the  Huguenot 
leaders  began  to  make  every  effort  to  collect  forces.  They 
sent  envoys  and  letters  to  England,  Switzerland,  Savoy  and 
Germany,  explaining  what  they  were  doing  and  asking  for 
sympathy,  but,  at  the  beginning,  Coligny  was  entirely 
opposed  to  asking  actual  help  from  abroad.  They  wrote 
to  the  two  thousand  odd  Reformed  churches  asking  for  men 
and  money  and  they  summoned  the  Huguenot  nobility 
from  all  parts  of  France  to  join  them.  They  used  the  power 
of  the  press  to  its  fullest  extent  and  poured  out  a  flood  of 
pamphlets  and  declarations  defending  the  justice  of  their 
cause.  Perhaps  the  most  significant  of  these  is  the  Articles 
of  Association,  signed  by  two  hundred  French  nobles  and 
afterwards  reported  to  have  been  "assented  to  and  signed 
by  over  four  thousand  gentlemen  of  the  best  and  most 
ancient  houses  in  France."  It  denounced  the  audacity, 
temerity  and  ambition  of  some  of  the  subjects  of  the  King, 
who  despise  his  youth  and  have  dared  to  take  arms  against 
his  edicts  and  put  to  death  a  good  number  of  his  poor 
subjects  when  they  were  assembled  for  divine  worship  with 
his  permission.  Against  all  laws,  human  and  divine,  these 
people  have  seized  the  person  of  the  King  and  of  the  Queen, 

*De  la  Noue,  554.    A.  N.  K.  1497,  App.  8. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  249 

and  the  signers,  wishing  to  save  the  King  and  the  Crown 
and  to  restore  the  Queen  to  her  authority,  and  also  to  save 
for  the  poor  faithful  Christians  of  this  realm  the  liberty  of 
conscience  which  it  has  pleased  the  King  to  grant  them  by 
edict,  have  joined  themselves  together  under  the  leadership 
of  the  Prince  of  Conde  (one  of  the  protectors  of  the  Crown) 
for  this  purpose.  "We  promise  not  to  suffer  in  our  company 
anything  contrary  to  the  commandments  of  God,  such  as 
idolatry  and  superstition,  blasphemy  or  licentiousness, 
violence,  plundering,  breaking  of  images  and  sacking  of 
temples,  or  any  other  such  thing  forbidden  by  God  or  by 
the  last  edict  of  January."  They  were  willing  to  receive 
into  their  Association  anybody  who  sympathized  with  its 
purpose,  and  they  promised  to  treat  as  a  traitor  anyone  who 
betrayed  it  or  withdrew  from  it.  At  the  same  time  there 
were  published  forged  articles  of  a  supposed  agreement 
made  between  the  members  of  the  Triumvirate  for  a  de- 
tailed plan  under  the  leadership  of  the  King  of  Spain  to 
destroy  the  Protestants  of  the  world;  beginning  with  the 
destruction  of  the  city  of  Geneva,  all  of  whose  inhabitants, 
without  distinction  either  of  age  or  sex,  were  to  be  de- 
stroyed by  the  sword  or  thrown  into  the  lake.  All  French 
Protestants  were  also  to  be  put  to  death  and  then  the  rest 
of  Protestant  Switzerland  and  Germany  were  to  be  reduced 
to  obedience  to  the  Church.^ 

On  the  other  hand  the  Triumvirate,  protesting  equally 
their  loyalty  to  the  King  and  their  willingness  to  submit 
to  the  authority  of  the  Queen  Mother,  asserted  that  their 
only  objects  were  the  restoration  of  the  ancient  Church 
as  the  sole  religion  in  France  and  to  prevent  anyone  not 
a  faithful  member  of  it  from  holding  any  office  in  the 
state,  to  disperse  all  armed  forces  except  those  under  the 
command  of  the  King  of  Navarre  and  to  restore  tranquillity 
completely.^ 

The   Crown   answered  the   Huguenot   documents  by 

'Whitehead,  111,  ctd.  114;  Cond6,  III,  270.    See  Note. 
"Conde,  III,  338. 


250  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

reaffirming  the  Edict  of  January  and  denying  that  there 
was  any  intention  of  abandoning  it.  A  number  of  circum- 
stances suggested  to  the  associated  Huguenot  chiefs  doubt 
as  to  the  sincerity  of  these  assurances.  On  the  12th  of 
April  a  Huguenot  congregation  wor^ipping  according  to 
the  Edict  just  outside  the  walls  of  the  city  of  Sens,  of  which 
the  Cardinal  of  Guise  was  Archbishop,  was  attacked  by  a 
mob  of  townsfolk  and  peasants  from  the  neighborhood.  A 
massacre  began  which  lasted,  according  to  the  journal  of  a 
Catholic  priest  of  the  neighborhood,  until  aU  the  heretics 
of  Sens,  with  the  exception  of  some  who  were  hid  by  their 
Roman  Catholic  friends,  were  killed.  Those  who  survived 
were  so  few  in  number  that  they  never  dared  to  seek  redress 
by  justice  "from  fear  that  the  people  might  throw  them- 
selves upon  them,  and  send  them  to  swim  in  the  river  Yonne 
after  the  others."  The  Reformed  church  of  Sens  had, 
according  to  the  custom  which  angered  Monluc  in  the 
south,  employed  a  captain  and  a  guard  to  protect  them  and, 
if  need  be,  to  organize  their  resistance.  He  was  out  of  town 
when  the  riot  began,  but  hurried  back  only  to  be  killed 
with  all  his  men.  The  children  of  the  city  tied  a  rope 
about  his  feet  and  dragged  the  body  through  the  streets 
for  hours,  crying,  "Bring  out  your  swine,  here  is  the  swine- 
herd." For  years  to  come  this  insulting  the  dead  was 
almost  the  normal  action  of  the  superstitious  and  debased 
mobs  whenever  they  attacked  Huguenots  in  cities.  An 
Italian  wrote  home  of  the  Paris  mob,  "If  they  find  one  of 
the  new  religion  anywhere,  they  kill  him  at  once  and  drag 
him  around  as  if  he  were  a  dead  dog."  It  was  the  bitter 
preaching  which  helped  to  rouse  the  fanaticism  of  these 
mobs,  which  made  the  Huguenot  soldiers  apt  to  kill  almost 
every  monk,  innocent  or  guilty,  on  whom  they  could  lay 
their  hands.^ 

Both  sides  were  levying  forces  as  rapidly  as  they  could 
and  both  sides  were  privately  assuring  the  Queen  Mother 
that  they  would  lay  down  their  arms  provided  the  other 

'Conde,  III,  300;  Haton,  I,  195;  Arch.  Mod.  qtd.  Whitehead,  130. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  251 

side  would  do  it  first.  The  moderate  Catholic,  Etienne 
Pasquier,  has  recorded  his  opinion  in  a  contemporary  letter : 
"The  Prince  of  Conde  is  unwilling  to  accept  these  offers  of 
the  Duke  of  Guise.  He  is  of  the  opinion  that  they  are  trying 
to  fool  him.  The  others  have  the  same  judgment  about  him 
and  perhaps  in  this  matter  neither  of  the  two  are  deceived." 
Conde  announces  that  his  purpose  is  to  set  the  King  at 
liberty  and  in  the  military  commission  summoning  the 
nobility  to  support  the  Crown,  it  is  announced  that  the 
purpose  is  to  set  free  the  Prince  of  Conde,  who  is  held  a 
captive  by  »3me  seditious  people.  "It  is  fair  to  say  that 
this  is  trick  for  trick  and  paying  the  others  in  their  own 
money."  ^ 

Catherine  was  now  anxious  to  wash  her  hands  of  all 
connection  with  the  Huguenot  rising.  She  denied  that 
Conde  had  ever  had  any  suggestions  from  her  to  arm  for 
her  defense  and  the  service  of  the  King.  On  the  contrary, 
she  said  that  all  she  had  ever  urged  him  to  do  for  the 
King's  service  was  to  withdraw  from  Paris  and  to  disarm. 
When  he  published  in  Germany  her  letters  she  appended  to 
them  explanations  in  this  sense,  which  are  exceedingly  lame, 
particularly  those  of  the  one  which  ends :  "Burn  this  letter 
instantly."  And  a  conversation  reported  by  the  Spanish 
Ambassador  before  the  publication  of  the  letters  makes  the 
case  against  her  rather  complete.  When  she  heard  it  said 
that  "Conde  had  letters  signed  by  her  asking  him  to  arm, 
she  did  not  deny  the  existence  of  the  letters.  She  said,  Tt 
might  be  they  had  forged  the  signatures,'  which  makes  some 
here  say  she  wanted  to  deny  in  advance  signatures  she 
knew  they  could  produce."  These  denials  of  all  connection 
or  sympathy  with  the  heretic  party,  were  made  particularly 
strong  towards  Spain.  Catherine  wrote  to  her  Ambassador 
at  Madrid :  "I  have  been  anxious  that  all  the  Lords  should 
write  to  the  King  of  Spain  in  regard  to  my  attitude  toward 
religion,  not  that  I  need  any  testimony  before  God  nor  men 
in  regard  to  my  faith  nor  my  good  works,  but  because  of  the 

*  Pasquier  (2),  II,  100. 


252  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

lies  which  have  been  told  of  me.  For  I  have  never  changed 
in  deed,  will,  nor  habits,  the  religion  which  I  have  held  for 
forty-three  years,  and  in  which  I  have  been  baptized  and 
brought  up."  ^ 

With  aU  Catherine's  desire  not  to  be  involved  openly 
with  the  Huguenot  rising,  now  that  their  party  seemed  the 
weaker,  she  was  evidently  very  much  afraid  of  the  other 
faction,  headed  by  her  old  enemies,  the  Guise.  Not  long 
after  her  return  to  Paris,  she  called  the  Duchess  of  Guise 
and  began  by  saying  she  had  always  been  exceedingly  fond 
of  her  and  therefore  wished  to  confess  something  to  her. 
She  had,  at  the  beginning,  been  so  suspicious  that  Guise 
and  his  party  wanted  to  remove  her  from  all  authority  and 
even  from  the  person  of  the  King,  that  she  had  played  a 
double  part  and  had  in  a  certain  way  sustained  the  other 
side,  but  if  she  could  "assure  her  that  they  did  not  desire 
to  do  anything  in  her  prejudice,  she  would  believe  it  and 
follow  their  advice."  The  Duchess  and  afterwards  her 
husband,  assured  the  Queen  in  the  name  of  all  the  con- 
federates that  if  she  would  "really  support  religion,  the 
authority  of  the  King  and  the  safety  of  the  kingdom,  she 
would  find  in  them  all  obedience,  for  they  never  had  any 
idea  of  attacking  her  authority."  ^ 

Both  sides  were  now  not  only  mustering  forces  in  France 
but  doing  their  best  to  raise  auxiliary  and  mercenary  con- 
tingents in  Germany,  Switzerland,  from  the  Pope,  England 
and  Spain.  After  the  massacre  of  Sens  a  rapid  succession 
of  risings  and  surprises  had  put  into  the  Huguenot  hands 
a  great  number  of  the  French  walled  cities,  so  that  Bran  tome 
wrote,  "when  it  was  asked  what  cities  have  the  Huguenots 
taken?  the  answer  was,  'Better  ask  what  ones  they  have  not 
taken.' " « 

Catherine,  however,  was  still  determined  to  make  peace 
and  she  had  around  her  some  of  the  little  set  of  men  already 

'B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6611  f.  59;  Letts.  I.  290.  296.  596.    A,  N.  K.  1497. 

•A.  N.  K.  1497  Sp.  Amb. 

■Brant.  IV,  293,  Comp.  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6620  f.  198. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  253 

alluded  to,  for  the  most  part  moderate  Catholics,  who  shared 
her  dismay  at  the  prospect  of  civil  war.  Two  of  her  secre- 
taries wrote  to  their  friends  at  this  time:  "If  God  doesn't 
help,  I  am  very  much  afraid  that  there  will  be  the  most 
terrible  bloodshed  the  world  has  ever  seen.  .  .  .  You  are 
very  fortunate  that  you  are  far  enough  away  not  to  see 
close  by  the  evil  which  we  are  now  seeing,"  and  the  French 
Ambassador  in  England  wrote,  "I  thank  God  that  the  King 
has  the  stronger  forces,  but  I  would  with  all  my  heart  he 
were  not  compelled  to  try  his  strength  against  his  subjects; 
that  is  to  say,  against  himself.  .  .  .  This  compels  me  to  say 
that  no  conditions  of  peace  can  be  suggested  which  are  not 
preferable  to  civil  war."  These  men  probably  had  through- 
out the  kingdom  thousands  of  sympathizers  who  dishked 
heresy  but  thought  civil  war  was  worse.  Unfortunately  for 
France  they  were  not  yet  organized  as  they  afterwards 
were  under  Coligny's  cousin,  the  son  of  the  Constable,  into 
the  party  of  the  so-called  Politiques.^ 

In  spite  of  the  suspicions  and  insults  called  out  to  her 
in  the  streets  of  Paris,  Catherine,  with  a  sort  of  yielding 
obstinacy,  continued  her  negotiations  for  peace,  even  after 
the  armies  were  mustered  and  the  fighting  had  actually 
begun  in  many  parts  of  France.  She  finally  met  Conde 
on  the  9th  of  June  in  a  pouring  rain  in  a  flat,  open  country 
not  far  from  Toury.  Conde  refused  to  enter  a  near-by  barn 
or  to  dismount  from  his  horse,  and  Catherine  talked  to  him 
without  even  removing  the  half  mask  of  black  velvet  which 
ladies  of  the  time  often  wore.  Under  these  depressing 
circumstances,  Catherine's  usual  merry  humor  did  not  desert 
her.  The  Huguenot  gentlemen  had  adopted  the  custom 
of  wearing  white  cloaks  over  their  armor.  Catherine  said : 
"My  cousin,  your  followers  are  a  lot  of  millers."  To  which 
the  dapper  little  prince,  a  typical  French  noble,  a  hard 
fighter  but  always  full  of  gaiety  and  gallantry  to  the  ladies, 
answered,  "That's  so  they  may  be  ready  to  beat  your 
donkeys,   Madame."    Meantime  the  gentlemen   of   their 

*B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6618  f.  170, 172.   Teulet,  II,  179;  Pasquier  (2),  Bk.  X,  6. 


254  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

escorts,  a  hundred  on  a  side,  had  been  halted  at  eight  hun- 
dred paces  from  each  other.  A  Huguenot  leader  describes 
the  scene:  "I  had  a  dozen  friends  on  the  other  side,  each 
of  whom  was  as  dear  to  me  as  a  brother,  and  there  were 
many  others  in  the  same  situation,  so  that,  man  after  man 
asking  permission  from  his  officer,  the  two  lines  of  crimson 
cloaks  and  white  cloaks  were  soon  mingled  together  in 
friendly  talk  and  when  they  separated  it  was  with  tears 
in  their  eyes."  ^ 

Conde  said  that  if  the  Triumvirate  and  their  friends 
would  disarm  and  return  to  their  homes,  he  and  his  friends 
would  do  the  same,  and  asked  for  the  confirmation  of  the 
Edict  of  January  granting  toleration  to  the  Huguenots. 
Catherine  was  unable  to  promise  either  point,  the  con- 
ference dissolved  and  the  royal  army  at  once  advanced  to 
within  eighteen  miles  of  Orleans. 

Catherine  was  not  discouraged.  She  continued  to  send 
messengers  to  the  Huguenot  chiefs  and  on  the  twenty-fourth 
of  June,  sixteen  of  them  signed  a  written  promise  that,  if 
the  Triumvirate  would  retire  to  their  homes,  they  would 
ask  the  Prince  of  Conde  to  put  himself  in  Catherine's  hands 
'as  a  pledge  of  their  obedience  to  the  King.  The  rejoicing 
Triumvirate  at  once  withdrew  from  the  army,  but  went 
back  only  a  few  miles  to  the  city  of  Chateaudun.  Four 
days  later  Conde  was  taken  by  Catherine  to  the  chateau 
of  Talcy,  some  miles  in  the  rear.  He  asked  that  Coligny 
and  the  other  chiefs  might  have  an  interview  on  the  fol- 
lowing day.  In  spite  of  the  King  of  Navarre's  objection 
to  this,  Catherine  agreed  and,  as  Coligny  positively  refused 
to  enter  the  walls  of  any  town,  the  interview  was  held  in 
a  barn  in  the  country.  One  of  the  chiefs  who  went  into 
the  barn  v/ith  the  Admiral  has  recorded  in  his  memoirs  how 
Catherine  came  in  walking  with  a  stick  (she  had  been  in- 
jured by  being  thrown  from  her  horse  a  short  time  before) 
and,  when  the  interview  did  not  go  as  she  wished,  she  beat 

^A.  N.  K.  1497,  B.  N.  It.  1722  f.  353,  384.  391;  d'Aubigne.  II.  35,  40; 
Haton,  I,  306;  Whitehead,  119;  de  la  Noue,  558. 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  255 

on  the  ground  with  her  cane,  crying  out,  "Ah,  my  cousin, 
you  are  ruining  me!  You  are  driving  me  madf"  But  the 
end  of  the  interview  was  to  her  satisfaction.  For  some 
reason  which  no  contemporary  and  no  later  historian  has 
ever  been  able  to  discover,  Conde,  finding  that  he  could  get 
nothing  but  liberty  of  conscience  without  liberty  of  worship, 
finally  offered  for  himself  and  his  friends  to  sell  their  prop- 
erty and  leave  the  kingdom.  He  and  the  Queen  Mother 
could  not  resist  a  joke  at  parting,  for  he  said  with  a  smile, 
"I  understand  you  had  a  httle  plot  to  keep  me  at  Talcy  as  a 
prisoner."  She  burst  into  a  laugh  and  intimated  that  they 
might,  if  they  chose,  have  carried  her  off  to  Orleans.^ 

No  sooner  were  the  Huguenot  chiefs  out  of  the  presence 
of  the  Queen,  than  they  began  to  regret  the  rash  promise 
which  had  been  made  and  the  next  morning,  at  a  council 
of  all  the  chiefs  and  oflScers,  the  news  of  what  had  been 
agreed  upon  raised  a  storm  of  protest.  One  man  said,  "I 
am  fifty  years  old  and  I  don't  quite  see  myself  walking 
about  a  strange  country  gnawing  a  toothpick,  while  my 
neighbor  is  the  master  of  my  house  and  draws  my  rents. 
Let  anyone  go  who  will ;  I  am  going  to  stay  in  my  country 
and  die  for  the  defense  of  its  altars  and  its  hearths."  The 
Prince  therefore  decided  to  break  his  promise  and  the 
Queen's  secretary,  who  had  arrived  to  close  the  affair,  went 
back  to  tell  his  mistress  that  it  would  take  something  more 
than  paper  to  drive  the  Huguenots  out  of  France.  The 
better  to  excuse  this  action,  the  Huguenots  published  a 
letter  from  the  Duke  of  Guise  to  his  brother,  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine,  which  made  it  plain  that  the  Triumvirate  had 
planned  treachery  five  days  before.  That  document  was 
a  forgery,  like  the  supposed  plan  of  the  Triumvirate  for  the 
massacre  of  all  the  Reformed  of  France  and  of  Geneva.  But 
that  the  Triumvirate  party  did  intend  treachery  is  plainly 
shown  to  us  by  the  correspondence  of  the  Cardinal  of 
Ferrara,  who  wrote  explaining  the  plot  with  an  injunction 

*  Conde,  III,  518;  Cal.  F.  1562,  p.  128.  Soubise,  50;  Hyp.  ctd.  Ranke, 
V,25. 


256  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

to  keep  it  quiet.  Whatever  may  be  said  in  apology  for  the 
withdrawal  of  a  promise  so  rash,  the  unsuccessful  attempt 
which  followed  this  council  of  the  chief  Huguenots,  to  sur- 
prise the  royal  army  by  a  night  attack  in  the  absence  of  its 
leaders,  who  had  withdrawn  under  agreement,  was  a  plain 
piece  of  treachery.^ 

This  outcome  of  the  negotiations  must  have  been  a  huge 
disappointment  to  Catherine,  for  on  the  night  after  the 
interview  she  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Montpensier  that  Conde 
and  his  followers  had  promised  to  leave  the  kingdom  witii 
the  sole  condition  of  liberty  of  conscience  for  the  Huguenots 
who  chose  to  remain  and  she  directed  him  to  take  steps  to 
receive  the  surrender  of  two  of  the  chief  cities  they  held. 
But  even  after  this  disappointment,  she  was  still  anxious 
to  renew  her  attempts  to  make  peace.  We  know  from  her 
letters  to  her  daughter  that  she  thought  both  sides  hypo- 
crites. "Everything  that  is  done  on  one  side  and  the  other 
is  nothing  but  the  desire  to  rule  and  to  take  from  me  under 
cover  and  color  of  religion,  the  power  I  possess."  She 
believed  there  was  not,  on  either  side,  "sanctity  or  religion, 
but  only  private  passions,  vengeance,  and  personal  hatred." 
She  did  not  want  either  side  to  win.  She  thought  she  had 
good  reason  to  distrust  the  use  the  Triumvirate  might  make 
of  unhampered  control  in  the  state,  and  a  letter  to  her 
Ambassador  at  Madrid  shows  that  one  feeling  in  the  back 
of  her  mind  made  her  fear  above  all  things  a  Huguenot 
victory:  that  was  a  deep-rooted  suspicion  of  her  son-in-law, 
the  King  of  Spain,  to  whom  she  was  always  writing  such 
affectionate  letters.  If  the  victory  should  turn  to  the  side 
of  the  Prince  of  Conde,  "my  son  the  Catholic  King  might 
undertake  to  revenge  that  defeat  and,  under  pretense  of 
aiding  me  to  save  this  kingdom,  would  make  himself  the 
tutor  of  my  son;  which  would  be  the  very  greatest  of  all 
misfortunes  and  the  total  n.in  of  this  state."  Therefore 
she  begs  the  Ambassador,  without  letting  it  be  known  that 

*Hist.  Ecc.  I;  de  la  Noue,  562,  564;  Conde,  III,  509,  see  note.  Hyp. 
pp.  254,  256;  Due  d'Aumale,  116  (a  descendant  of  Conde). 


THE  LINES  DRAWN  FOR  CIVIL  WAR  257 

he  had  heard  from  her,  to  tell  him  that  she  has  summoned 
six  thousand  Swiss  and  eight  thousand  Germans,  which,  in 
case  of  any  disaster,  would  be  able  to  save  the  kingdom, 
"so  that,  knowing  this  fact,  you  can  take  away  from  the 
King  any  desire  to  come  to  my  aid  with  huge  forces.  Use 
all  your  five  senses,  because  I  am  as  much  afraid  as  I  am 
of  death  to  see  come  to  my  son  and  to  myself  that  utterly 
unbearable  thing,  knowing  what  are  the  counsels,  practices 
and  plots  of  those  who  have  stirred  up  these  troubles." 
(The  Guise.)' 

'Letts.  I,  310,  341;  X,  60,  75,  78,  330. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   FIRST   CIVIL  WAR   ABOUT  RELIGION 

The  war  soon  became  a  cruel  one.  At  first  the  Hugue- 
nots attempted  to  hold  the  strictest  discipline  over  their 
forces.  De  la  Noue,  who  fought  in  the  army  of  the  Loire 
under  the  Admiral,  and  later  became  a  chief  pillar  of  the 
Huguenot  cause,  tells  the  story  of  what  happened.  "Dice, 
cards  and  women  were  banished  from  the  quarters,  plunder- 
ing was  strictly  forbidden  and  arrangements  were  made  for 
religious  service  every  day.  At  first  the  orders  were  ad- 
mirably obeyed,  but  two  months  later  the  troops  from 
Provence,  at  the  storming  of  Beaugency,  showed  more 
cruelty  and  pillaging  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the  Reformed 
religion  who  couldn't  escape,  than  they  showed  against  the 
Catholic  soldiers."  There  was  even  some  violation  of 
women.  Two  other  regiments,  one  of  Gascons  and  the  other 
of  Frenchmen,  followed  their  example  and  the  three  had  an 
evil  rivalry  to  see  who  could  do  the  worst.  "That  was  the 
birth  of  Mademoiselle  la  Picoree,  since  so  much  increased 
in  dignity  that  she  is  now  called  Madame,  and,  if  the  civil 
war  continues,  I  do  not  doubt  that  she  will  even  become 
Princess."  This  evil  infection  spread  until  the  whole  army 
was  affected.  The  Admiral  did  his  best  to  stop  this  and  "he 
was  a  very  good  doctor  to  heal  that  illness  because  he  was 
absolutely  without  pity  for  offenders.  When  he  went  into 
Normandy  he  was  told  that  a  certain  captain  had  sacked  a 
village.  He  sent  at  once  but  couldn't  catch  anybody  except 
the  chief  and  four  or  five  soldiers,  whom  he  strung  up  on 
the  spot,  booted  and  spurred  and  their  cloaks  on  their 
backs,  with  the  flag  for  ensign.  To  make  the  trophy  more 
striking,  he  put  at  their  feet  what  they  had  stolen,  women's 
dresses,  sheets  and  table-cloths  mixed  with  chickens  and 

258 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      259 

hams,  with  an  inscription  in  large  letters:  WARNING  TO 
ALL  SOLDIERS  WHO  PASS  BY.  I  must  also  say  in 
favor  of  the  Catholic  regiments  that  they  were  at  first  kept 
in  very  good  order  and  did  little  harm  to  the  people,  but  I 
understand  that  they  pretty  soon  spread  their  sails  to  the 
wind  and  took  the  same  course  that  the  others  did.  Al- 
though sometimes  such  disorders  gave  cause  for  laughter, 
yet  there  was  more  often  reason  for  weeping  to  see  so  large 
a  number  of  people  carrying  arms  who  deserve,  because  of 
their  bad  actions,  the  name  of  bandit  rather  than  that  of 
soldier."  ^ 

The  Admiral's  efforts  were  impeded  not  only  by  the  bad 
military  custom  of  allowing  soldiers  pillage  as  part  of  their 
wages,  but  also  because  of  his  lack  of  money  to  pay  his 
German  auxiliaries.  It  is  a  commentary  on  the  effect  of 
war — even  war  which  he  had  tried  at  the  beginning  to  make 
worthy  of  being  called  a  war  for  the  word  of  God — that  in 
four  months  the  Admiral  should  write  to  his  brother  and 
suggest,  as  a  means  of  recruiting  mercenaries  in  Germany, 
to  promise  them  "the  sack  of  Paris,"  because  "we  do  not 
treat  the  Papists  so  badly  as  their  beastly  cruelty  de- 
serves." ^ 

There  was  one  form  of  disorder  in  particular  which  the 
Huguenot  captains  were  powerless  to  check — iconoclasm. 
The  impulse  to  this  seemed  to  be  with  many  of  the  Hugue- 
not soldiers  almost  an  obsession.  Soon  after  the  Huguenots 
seized  Orleans,  the  Prince  and  the  Admiral,  hearing  that 
the  ornaments  of  the  great  church  of  Sainte  Croix  were 
being  destroyed,  ran  to  the  place  followed  by  a  number  of 
their  suite  and  began  with  blows  of  the  swords  and  of  sticks 
to  try  to  stop  the  disorder.  Finally  the  Prince  seized  a 
harquebus  and  took  aim  at  a  man  who  had  climbed  high 
up  to  smash  a  statue.  He  calmly  turned  around  and  said, 
"Wait  a  moment,  sir,  until  I  have  broken  down  this  idol 
and  then  I  will  die  if  it  pleases  you."  * 

'De  la  Noue,  573. 
'Lettenhove  (1),  9. 
'Hist.  Ecc,  II,  51. 


260  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

The  war  was  not  a  war  of  pitched  battles,  but  rather  of 
sieges  of  chateaux  and  small  towns.  Over  great  stretches 
of  French  soil  it  was  not  possible  to  ride  abroad  without 
fearing  that  "every  patch  of  wood  concealed  an  ambuscade." 
In  the  far  south  the  fighting  took  on  a  savage  and  terribly- 
desperate  character.  The  royal  general,  Monluc,  and  the 
Huguenot  captain,  des  Adrets,  Governor  of  Lyons  and 
Commander  in  the  South  by  election  of  the  inhabitants  and 
by  commission  of  Conde,  rivalled  each  other  in  cruel  deeds. 
Monluc  accepted  the  surrender  of  four  hundred  men  of  the 
garrison  of  Terraube  under  promise  of  sparing  their  lives. 
Two  days  later,  irritated  because  the  garrison  of  a  neighbor- 
ing town  he  was  besieging  had  treacherously  fired  upon  a 
flag  of  truce,  he  sent  back  for  the  four  leading  nobles  among 
his  prisoners  and  hung  them  on  a  walnut  tree  in  sight  of  the 
city.  The  soldiers  were  all  put  to  the  sword  and  flung  into 
a  deep  well  until  he  filled  it  up  so  that  the  top  of  the  heap 
could  be  touched  with  the  hand.  "A  very  good  riddance  of 
very  bad  people,"  he  wrote  in  his  Memoirs.  Des  Adrets, 
capturing  several  little  cities  in  the  hilly  country  to  the 
west  of  the  southern  course  of  the  Rhone,  varied  his  slaugh- 
ter of  surrendered  garrisons  by  making  some  of  the  soldiers 
jump  from  the  precipices  on  which  the  citadels  were  built. 
One  poor  fellow,  hesitating  to  jump  off,  Des  Adrets  re- 
marked with  a  sneer,  "What,  will  it  take  you  two  jumps  to 
do  it?"  "Well,"  answered  the  victim,  "I'll  give  you  ten  to 
do  it  in."  The  savage  captain  took  the  wit  as  a  ransom  for 
the  man's  life.^ 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  these  two  men  who  made  the 
most  terrible  names  for  themselves  on  either  side,  were  not 
moved  by  any  religious  fanaticism.  When  the  troubles 
began,  Monluc,  whose  brother,  the  Bishop  of  Valence,  was 
not  very  orthodox,  hesitated  as  to  which  side  he  should  join, 
and  later  he  was  suspected  by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  of 
wishing  to  go  over  to  the  Huguenots.  Des  Adrets  in  the 
second  war  became  a  leader  on  the  orthodox  side.    Curiously 

*D'Aubign^  (1),  II,  50,  56;  Monluc,  V,  258,  635. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      261 

enough  we  have  a  record  of  what  each  of  them  said  about  his 
own  method  of  warfare.  Monluc  told  the  Duke  of  Alva, 
two  years  after  the  war  was  finished,  and  when  there  was 
fear  of  its  renewal,  "if  everybody  had  only  followed  his 
example,  that  is  to  say,  to  grant  quarter  to  no  one,  all  would 
be  now  over,  but,  unfortunately,  many  brave  people  meet- 
ing in  war  said  one  to  another,  'my  cousin,'  or  'my  brother' 
and  so  the  war  would  last  forever;  whereas  there  wouldn't 
be  more  than  enough  for  a  single  breakfast  with  the  scoun- 
drels if  everybody  would  act  together."  Long  after  the  war, 
the  young  Huguenot  captain,  d'Aubigne,  met  des  Adrets. 
"The  old  man  was  of  a  strong  and  vigorous  age.  He  had  a 
savage  eye  and  an  eagle-like  profile.  His  face  was  thin  and 
bony  and  marked  with  spots  the  color  of  blood,  as  Sulla  is 
described  to  us;  in  short  he  had  the  air  of  a  real  fighting 
man."  D'Aubigne  asked  him  "Why  he  had  inflicted  cruel- 
ties unworthy  of  his  great  work  as  a  soldier?"  He  answered, 
"first,  because  it  had  seemed  to  him  great  cowardice  to 
suffer  the  cruel  killing  of  his  faithful  comrades  without 
reprisals,  and  second,  to  make  his  men  fight  harder  because, 
having  given  no  quarter,  they  knew  they  couldn't  ask 
any."  ^ 

Both  of  the  men  acted  on  policy  and,  in  estimating  the 
cruelty  of  the  Huguenot  wars,  it  is  well  not  to  forget  that 
veteran  fighting  men  (and  general  European  war  had 
stopped  only  in  1559)  had  seen  terrible  slaughter  and  pil- 
lage. Otherwise  one  is  in  danger  of  considering  peculiar  to 
the  Huguenot  wars,  things  which  had  been  to  a  large  extent 
common  to  the  warfare  of  the  preceding  generations.  The 
history  of  the  Franco-Spanish  wars  in  Italy  of  the  first  half 
of  the  century  shows  a  terrible  list  of  massacres  and  plun- 
derings.  Nothing  done  in  the  civil  wars  of  France  was  as 
bad  in  the  way  of  cruelty,  lust  and  sacrilege  as  what  had 
been  done  a  generation  before  at  the  sack  of  Rome  by  the 
German  and  Spanish  regiments:  and  there  had  been  little 

*Courteault  (2),  391;  Granvelle  (1),  LX,  288;  De  Thou  (2),  228; 
d'Aubigne,  II,  73. 


262  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

to  choose  between  those  who  called  themselves  Lutherans 
and  those  who  called  themselves  Catholics. 

The  moderate  Roman  Catholic,  Etienne  Pasquier,  a  con- 
temporary, sums  up  the  situation  very  justly. 

"It  would  be  impossible  to  tell  you  what  barbarous  cruelties 
are  committed  on  both  sides.  Where  the  Huguenot  is  master, 
he  ruins  all  the  images,  demolishes  the  sepulchres  and  tombs, 
takes  away  all  the  consecrated  objects  in  the  churches.  In 
exchange  for  this  the  Catholic  kills,  murders,  drowns  all  those 
whom  he  knows  belong  to  that  faith  and  fills  the  rivers  with 
their  corpses.  Added  to  this  there  is  a  good  deal  of  private 
revenge  under  cover  of  the  public  quarrel.  Although  the  leaders 
put  on  the  appearance  of  condemning  such  conduct,  nevertheless 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  falsehood  and  connivance  hidden  under 
that  attitude." 

The  Huguenot  captain,  de  la  Noue,  in  his  military  essays 
already  cited,  echoes  the  Catholic  writer.  "The  war  cries 
were  Tor  God — For  the  Gospel'  and  yet  these  children  of  the 
same  God  pursued  each  other  with  fire  and  blood  like  savage 
beasts."  No  wonder  atheists  increased,  for  "it  is  our  wars 
for  religion  which  have  made  us  forget  religion."  In  one 
respect  both  sides  were  equally  pitiless.  The  slaughter  of 
priests  and  monks  was  very  common  after  the  Huguenots 
had  captured  a  city,  and  Catherine  wrote  to  Marshal  Ta- 
vannes  in  Burgundy:  "Do  all  you  can  to  finish  cleaning 
the  entire  country  of  Burgundy  of  the  vermin  of  preachers 
and  of  ministers  who  have  started  this  pest  there."  ^ 

Two  things  particularly  enraged  the  Huguenots,  first 
the  brutal  murders  and  massacres,  after  the  model  of  Sens, 
by  the  debased  mobs  which  then  infested  all  the  large 
French  cities.  These  mobs  were  intensely  superstitious  and 
eager  for  blood  and  plunder.  In  Paris  these  mob  murders 
were  continuous.  "It  was  enough  for  a  street  urchin  to  call 
out  after  a  stranger,  'There  goes  a  Huguenot'  and  a  crowd 
gathered,  killed  him,  stripped  him  and  the  boys  dragged  the 
body  through  the  streets  to  throw  it  into  the  river.    If  they 

*  Pasquier  (2),  IV,  7.  My  approval  of  this  contemporary  judgment  is 
based  on  a  collation  of  outrages  by  both  sides.    Letts.  I,  327. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      263 

kill  a  citizen,  they  plunder  his  house  and  generally  kill  his 
wife  and  children."  One  mob  would  not  wait  for  the  execu- 
tion of  a  heretic.  They  took  him  from  the  officers,  literally 
tore  him  in  pieces  and  threw  the  fragments  into  the  river. 
Another  day  a  murderer  standing  on  the  ladder  was  crafty 
enough  to  call  out,  "Alas !  I  must  die  for  killing  a  Huguenot 
who  insulted  Our  Lady."  The  mob  rescued  him  and  set  him 
free.  Second,  the  violation  of  Huguenot  women  by  the 
soldiers  of  the  Crown.  This  crime,  very  common  in  all  wars 
of  the  time,  was  undoubtedly  increased  by  the  slanders 
(similar  to  those  circulated  about  the  Christians  in  the  days 
of  the  Roman  Empire)  concerning  the  debaucheries  that 
went  on  in  the  secret  assemblies  of  the  Reformed  churches. 
A  deliberate  attempt  had  been  made  to  circulate  these 
slanders  which  were  widely  believed.  Under  Francis  II  an 
attempt  had  even  been  made  to  establish  them  by  perjury 
in  open  court.  Somewhat  later  the  old  fable  of  "the 
smearers"  or  people  in  a  conspiracy  to  spread  the  infection 
of  the  plague,  for  which  imaginary  crime  fifteen  women  had 
been  burnt  at  Geneva  in  1545,  was  revived  and  applied  to 
the  Huguenots.  During  the  peace  which  followed  the  war 
we  are  now  describing,  it  was  reported  by  several  corre- 
spondents that  the  Huguenots  were  poisoning  the  soup  at 
the  inns  to  spread  the  plague  and  had  smeared  more  than 
seven  hundred  Roman  Catholic  homes  at  Lyons  with  pest 
salve  in  order  to  make  the  epidemic  so  bad  that  the  King 
could  not  visit  the  city.^ 

The  hatred  of  the  Roman  Catholic  side  was  exasperated 
not  only  by  these  horrible  slanders,  but  also  by  a  strange 
form  of  that  deliberate  fury  of  destruction  against  inani- 
mate objects  which  has  been  described  under  the  title 
of  iconoclasm.  In  some  places  the  Huguenot  soldiers 
destroyed  tombs  and  scattered  the  bones  of  the  dead: 
an  impulse  which  showed  itself  also  in  Scotland.  The 
strong  protests  of  men  like  Beza  against  this  barbarity 

*E.  g.  Conde,  I,  86,  90,  91;  II,  89,  130,  149,  160,  193;  Cal.  F.  1563,  3, 
pp.  101,  158.  Hist.  Ecc.  144,  272;  Marcks  ctd.  Sp.  Amb.  89,  Bonnet.  Cal- 
vin's Letts.  I,  428. 


2W  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICI 

which  extended  to  the  tombs  of  the  ancestors  of  that 
zealous  Huguenot,  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  and  the  at- 
tempts of  Conde  to  stop  it  by  punishment  scarcely  les- 
sened the  wrath  and  horror  it  caused  in  the  minds  even  of 
moderate  Catholics.  These  desecrators  of  tombs  felt  they 
were  imitating  King  Josias,  of  whom  we  are  told  in  the 
Book  of  Kings  that  he  "burnt  the  bones  of  idolaters  on  the 
altars  of  their  idols  in  order  to  purge  Judah  and  Jerusalem 
of  all  abominations."  ^ 

When  the  fighting  began  between  the  main  armies  north 
of  the  Loire,  the  Huguenots  had  decidedly  the  worst  of  it. 
The  important  city  of  Tours  was  besieged  and  surrendered 
on  the  first  of  September.  Rouen,  sometimes  called  the  sec- 
ond richest  city  in  the  kingdom,  was  taken  by  assault  in  the 
end  of  October  and  about  the  same  time  word  reached  the 
Prince  of  Conde  that  an  army  of  five  thousand  Gascons, 
marching  up  from  the  south  to  join  him,  had  been  surprised 
and  driven  back  with  the  loss  of  more  than  one-third  of  its 
number.  During  the  siege  of  Rouen  the  King  of  Navarre 
received  a  mortal  wound  of  which  he  died  in  a  few  days.  A 
weak  man,  always  ready  to  postpone  work  for  pleasure,  he 
counted  the  opportunity  of  saving  France  from  mortal 
danger  to  which  he  had  been  bom,  as  of  little  value  com- 
pared to  the  title  of  King  which  he  had  gained  by  marriage. 
He  tried  to  use  the  position  of  champion,  first  of  reform 
and  then  of  orthodoxy,  as  a  stake  in  the  game  he  was  play- 
ing to  win  a  day-dream  kingdom  in  Sardinia  or  Tunis,  and 
he  lacked  wit  to  perceive  that  his  crafty  antagonists  had 
loaded  the  dice.  In  hfe  he  cut  rather  a  pitiable  figure 
among  the  astuter,  more  resolute  or  more  sincere  men 
around  him.  As  death  drew  near,  his  two  physicians,  one  a 
Protestant  and  the  other  a  Catholic,  unable  to  save  his 
body,  fought  a  duel  for  the  salvation  of  his  soul  and  there 
are  good  grounds  for  the  grisly  joke  repeated  over  his  coffin 
that  he  finally  died  without  being  able  to  make  up  his  mind 
whether  he  was  a  Protestant  or  a  Catholic. 

»Romier  ctd.  II,  358;  Neg.  Tosc.  III.  489;  Conde,  II,  369. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      265 

In  spite  of  the  loss  of  Rouen  the  Huguenots  were  not 
discouraged.  No  disaster  could  break  the  iron  will  of 
Coligny  and  the  gay  spirit  of  Conde  made  a  jest  of  defeat. 
"They  have  given  us,"  he  said,  "some  bad  checks.  They 
have  taken  our  two  castles  (Tours  and  Rouen),  but  if  they 
will  fight  us  in  the  open  field  perhaps  we  will  be  able  to  take 
their  knights."  He  expected  heavy  reenforcements  of  mer- 
cenaries brought  by  d'Andelot  from  Germany  and  he  had 
made  a  treaty  of  alliance  with  Elizabeth  of  England  which 
gave  him  six  thousand  men  and  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  crowns.  In  exchange,  Havre  de  Grace  (held  by 
the  Huguenots)  was  to  be  put  in  her  hands  until  Calais 
was  restored  to  her  in  accordance  with  the  treaty  of  1559. 
He  also  had  at  court  a  secret  ally  who  could  scarcely  con- 
ceal her  unwillingness  to  see  the  Huguenot  party  destroyed 
and  the  complete  triumph  of  the  party  of  Guise.  The  little 
King,  with  the  frank  impulse  of  a  boy,  blurted  out  his 
mother's  feelings.  When  the  Rhinegrave,  leader  of  the 
royal  German  auxiliaries,  was  presented  to  him  as  one  who 
had  brought  a  notable  aid  to  the  Crown,  he  said  aloud  to 
his  mother,  "I  don't  know  why  they  are  bringing  so  many 
strangers  into  the  kingdom.  I  don't  need  them.  I  know 
perfectly  well  that  it  is  against  the  Prince  of  Conde,  but  if 
he  was  defeated  and  those  of  his  company  I  believe  that 
they  would  make  of  you  a  little  chamber-maid  and  of  me  a 
little  valet."  ^ 

Even  before  the  death  of  Navarre  the  Tuscan  Ambassa- 
dor reported:  "The  Queen  Mother  becomes  every  day 
more  suspicious.  The  authority  of  the  Triumvirate  makes 
her  afraid  and  she  trembles  lest  she  should  be  removed  from 
the  government."  Soon  after  Navarre's  death  she  sent 
word  to  the  Prince  of  Conde  that  she  would  use  all  her 
power  to  help  him  succeed  to  his  brother's  rank  and  author- 
ity and  that  "she  was  very  desirous  that  the  King,  her  son, 
and  she  might  either  come  to  the  Prince  or  the  Prince  come 
to  them,  but  she  saw  great  difficulties  in  bringing  that  to 

*De  la  Noue,  584.    Lettenhove  (1). 


266  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

pass."  This  message  reached  the  Prince  while  his  army- 
was  in  march  toward  Paris,  taking  and  pillaging  towns  on 
the  way.  On  the  26th  of  November  they  pitched  their 
camp  within  a  mile  of  the  outskirts  of  the  capital.  A  few 
days  later  the  Queen  begged  the  Prince  and  the  Admiral  to 
meet  her  in  a  windmill  on  the  edge  of  the  suburbs.  They 
met  three  times  and  Catherine  on  her  return  told  the  Eng- 
lish Ambassador  at  St.  Denis  that  peace  was  made.  "The 
Prince  should  have  all  his  demands  in  regard  to  religion  and 
that  now  the  Queen  of  England  should  take  away  her  men 
from  Newhaven  and  other  places  she  held.  The  Prince  has 
promised  it  and  he  says  the  Queen  has  agreed  with  him  to 
do  so."  1 

As  a  matter  of  fact  everything  had  been  granted  that 
the  Prince  asked,  until  it  came  to  the  matter  of  pledges 
that  the  agreement  would  be  carried  out.  The  Prince  de- 
manded that  the  forces  on  both  sides  should  be  dissolved 
and  all  the  cities  disarmed.  Catherine  answered  "that  all 
forces  which  have  not  been  assembled  by  the  King's  com- 
mand must  retire,  strangers  outside  the  realm  and  French- 
men to  their  houses,  and  that  the  King  will  retain  such 
forces  as  seem  to  him  good."  To  which  the  Huguenots, 
when  they  published  their  account  of  this  transaction  added 
this  note:  "And  after  that  what  would  be  left  except  to 
lay  our  heads  upon  the  block?"  They  added  they  had  good 
reason  to  know  that  the  last  day  at  the  mill  the  Duke  of 
Guise,  believing  the  Queen  would  consent  to  the  Huguenots' 
demands,  told  her  that  if  he  thought  she  would  keep  what 
was  accorded  he  would  never  consent  to  it,  but  considered 
that  what  she  did  was  simply  for  the  purpose  of  dissolving 
the  Prince's  forces.  Thus  the  hope  of  peace  vanished  before 
the  suspicions  of  the  Huguenots  that  Guise  and  his  follow- 
ers would  not  suffer  the  Queen  Mother  to  keep  any  promises 
she  might  make  for  the  restoration  of  the  toleration  prom- 
ised in  the  Edict  of  January.^ 

*Neg.  Tosc.  Ill,  409,  497;  B.  N.  It.  1723,  f.  166;  Forbes,  II,  217,  409; 
Cal.  F.  1562,  p.  522. 

'Hist.  Ecc,  II,  258;  Conde,  IV,  144;  Cal.  F.  1562,  p.  552. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      267 

Resuming  their  campaign,  the  Huguenots  marched 
toward  Normandy.  Queen  Elizabeth  was  angered  because 
they  had  seemed  to  make  peace  without  her  and  had  appar- 
ently agreed  that  she  should  be  asked  to  surrender  Havre  de 
Grace.  The  Prince  of  Conde,  with  characteristic  gallantry, 
begged  the  English  Ambassador  to  ask  the  Queen  to  send 
him  a  scarf  of  her  colors  to  wear  in  this  "God's  quarrel  and 
yours,"  as  her  soldier,  "which,  he  says,  he  will  never  fail  to 
be  during  his  life.  I  was  very  loath  to  have  mixed  matters 
of  such  gravity  with  matters  of  such  a  nature  as  this,  but 
very  importunately  the  Prince  pressed  me  thereunto  and 
therefore  it  may  please  you  to  consider  it."  ^ 

The  army  of  the  Crown,  commanded  by  the  Constable, 
followed  in  the  direction  taken  by  the  Huguenots,  but  on  a 
somewhat  shorter  course  and  in  ten  days  they  threatened 
the  Huguenot  flank  and  brought  them  to  battle.  The  Tri- 
umvirate had  about  eighteen  thousand  men  to  their  enemy's 
twelve  thousand,  but  in  cavalry  the  Huguenots  outnum- 
bered them  more  than  two  to  one.  Conde  opened  the  battle 
with  a  dashing  charge  upon  the  center.  The  dense  battalion 
of  six  thousand  Swiss  mercenaries  which  held  it  was  shaken, 
seventeen  of  their  captains  were  killed  and  they  were  driven 
backwards.  Coligny  had  immediately  followed  by  an  attack 
upon  the  royal  left,  which  was  completely  broken  and  driven 
from  the  field.  The  Constable  himself  was  wounded  in  the 
face  and  taken  prisoner  and  some  of  the  officers  of  his 
routed  troops  did  not  draw  rein  until  they  had  brought  the 
palace  word  that  the  Huguenots  were  victorious.  That  part 
of  the  army  of  the  King  which  still  kept  the  field  had  been 
pivoted  backwards  until  the  line  was  almost  at  right  angles 
to  its  first  position.  But  hard  fighting  and  this  turning 
movement  had  very  much  disordered  the  Huguenot  ranks. 
The  Duke  of  Guise,  who,  without  nominal  command,  really 
led  the  right  wing,  had  held  his  troops  inactive  during  all 
this  earUer  stage  of  the  fight.  One  of  the  Constable's  sons, 
after  seeing  his  brother  killed  by  his  side,  had  been  driven 

*  Forbes,  II,  126,  250. 


268  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

back  upon  Guise's  troops  and  he  begged  him  to  charge  and 
save  his  father  from  defeat.  "No,  my  son,"  answered  the 
great  captain,  "it  is  not  yet  time."  Not  until  fighting  and 
victory  had  completely  disorganized  the  Huguenots,  did  he 
advance  in  a  charge,  which  drove  their  disordered  battalions 
from  the  field.  The  Prince  of  Conde's  horse  was  killed 
under  him  in  the  retreat,  he  was  taken  prisoner  and  but  for 
the  Admiral  the  entire  Huguenot  army  would  have  been 
broken  in  hopeless  rout.  That  experienced  fighter  made 
mistakes  in  attacks,  but  he  was  always  at  his  best  in  the 
face  of  defeat.  He  had  foreseen  the  disaster,  for  a  short  time 
before  when  some  of  his  captains  had  begun  to  shout  "Vic- 
tory!" he  had  checked  them  and  pointing  towards  the  solid 
masses  of  the  Catholic  right  motionless  behind  the  woods, 
said,  "You  are  fooling  yourselves,  wait  until  that  great 
cloud  bursts  upon  us."  ^ 

Now  when  the  day  seemed  lost  by  such  a  turn  in  the 
tide  of  victory,  he,  with  equal  suddenness,  restored  the  for- 
tunes of  the  field.  Taking  advantage  of  the  shelter  of  a 
little  coppice,  he  rallied  a  force  of  cavalry  and  suddenly  fell 
upon  the  Catholic  troopers  disordered  by  their  rapid  charge. 
Guise  ordered  the  Marshal  St.  Andre  to  meet  this  new 
danger  but,  when  he  tried  to  check  the  advancing  Hugue- 
nots, his  men  were  broken,  his  horse  was  killed  under  him 
and  he  surrendered  to  a  young  man  whom  a  few  years 
before  he  had  stripped  of  all  the  lands  of  his  wife's  dowry. 
The  young  man,  who  had  nourished  one  of  those  longings 
for  vengeance  which  in  the  men  of  that  time  were  often  as 
strong  as  a  hopeless  passion  for  a  woman,  murdered  his 
prisoner  with  a  pistol.  Night  was  now  falling  and  both 
sides  were  exhausted.  Guise  had  a  reserve  of  Spanish  in- 
fantry which  had  not  yet  been  engaged  at  all  and  it  was 
coming  up  into  action.  The  Admiral  therefore,  in  good 
order  and  unpursued,  withdrew  from  the  field  of  battle.^ 

Neither  side  would  admit  defeat.    The  Huguenots  had 

*B.  N.  It.  1722  f.  627;  de  la  Noue,  394. 
*D'Aumale,  Whitehead  and  contemporary  sources. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      269 

lost  their  infantry,  but  the  best  part  of  their  force,  the 
French  cavahy,  was  practically  unhurt.  From  a  mere  mili- 
tary point  of  view,  both  sides  had  gained  because  the  enemy 
had  captured  their  commanders-in-chief,  for  Guise  and 
Coligny  were  better  generals  than  the  Constable  and  the 
Prince  of  Conde.  But  the  Huguenots  had  lost  very  few 
men  of  mark  and  the  slaughter  and  wounding  of  leaders  on 
the  other  side  had  been  large.  More  than  ever  the  Duke  of 
Guise  became  the  prop  of  the  cause  of  uncompromising 
orthodoxy  and  persecution.  Indeed,  a  moderate  Catholic 
shrewdly  remarked  that  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  real 
victor  was  the  Duke  of  Guise,  because  the  capture  of  the 
Constable  and  the  death  of  Marshal  St.  Andre  left  him 
without  any  rival  with  whom  to  share  his  glory.^ 

Catherine  was  none  too  well  pleased  with  the  battle  or 
the  situation.  When  the  Venetian  Ambassador  told  her  she 
ought  to  thank  God  for  so  great  a  victory,  she  made  rather 
vague  replies  expressing  her  regret  for  the  slaughter.  To 
the  English  Ambassador  she  said  she  knew  both  victories 
and  defeats  hurt  her  son.  Catherine  was  not  alone  in  this 
attitude.  Her  reluctance  to  continue  the  war  had  been 
supported  so  strongly  in  December  by  the  majority  of  the 
royal  council  that  the  Venetian  Ambassador  reported: 
"Although  the  royal  council  is  composed  only  of  those  of 
unquestioned  orthodoxy,  they  are  filled  with  fear  and  sus- 
picion of  Spain  and  strongly  in  favor  of  peace."  In  order  to 
force  Catherine's  hand  and  to  free  themselves  from  respon- 
sibility in  case  of  a  defeat,  the  leaders  of  the  army  had  tried, 
five  days  before  the  battle,  to  compel  Catherine  to  order 
them  to  fight,  but  she  had  parried  the  attempt  with  her 
usual  quick  wit.  The  first  messenger  has  left  an  account  of 
his  mission: 

"I  travelled  all  night  and  arrived  in  the  morning  before  the 
Queen  Mother  and  the  King  were  dressed.  Her  Majesty  ex- 
pressed her  regret  at  seeing  the  interests  of  the  Crown  staked 
on  the  hazard  of  a  civil  battle.    The  nurse  of  the  King,  who 

^Coligny  Lett.  pntd.  Forbes,  II,  297.    Pasquier  (2),  IV,  19. 


270  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

was  a  Huguenot,  came  in,  and  all  three  went  to  see  the  King,  who 
was  not  yet  up.  The  Queen  Mother  said,  'It's  a  strange  thing 
that  experienced  captains  should  send  to  ask  the  advice  of  a 
woman  and  a  child  about  battles'  and  then  evidently  filled  with 
great  grief,  she  said  mockingly,  turning  to  the  nurse,  'Nurse,  they 
are  sending  to  ask  women  what  they  think  about  fighting.  What 
do  you  think  about  it?'  The  nurse,  following  the  Queen  into 
the  King's  room,  said  several  times  that,  since  the  Huguenots 
weren't  willing  to  accept  reasonable  terms,  she  thought  they 
ought  to  fight.  She  kept  on  saying  this  over  and  over  again. 
Finally  the  Queen  made  the  talkative  nurse  go  out,  dismissed 
all  the  others,  and  speaking  seriously  said:  *I  won't  send  any 
other  message  than  what  I  have  already  said.'  The  second 
messenger  arrived  in  the  afternoon,  but,  although  he  insisted 
upon  being  heard  by  the  council,  he  could  get  no  other  reply 
except  that  the  leaders  of  the  army  ought  to  do  whatever  seemed 
best  to  them."  ^ 

The  battle  therefore  left  Catherine  determined  to  make 
peace  as  quickly  as  possible  by  any  compromise  she  could 
persuade  both  parties  to  accept.  She  wrote  this  very  plainly 
to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  was  one  of  the  French 
envoys  to  the  Council  of  Trent. 

"May  God  grant,  my  cousin,  that  this  victory  for  which  we 
are  bound  to  praise  and  thank  Him,  may  give  us  the  chance  of 
a  good  peace  which  shall  restore  this  state  to  the  tranquillity 
which  I  desire  for  it  and  which  is  necessary  in  order  to  save  it 
from  destruction.  God  grant  that  from  where  you  are  we  may 
see  arise  a  holy  and  serious  reformation  of  the  things  which  are 
depraved  in  the  Church  of  God,  and  that  it  may  be  the  cause 
of  a  general  union  and  concord  in  religion."  ^ 

There  was  indeed  every  reason  why  France  should  have 
peace.  We  cannot  suppose,  indeed,  that  the  sardonic  ab- 
surdity of  a  war  where  both  sides  claimed  to  be  fighting  for 
the  gospel  of  Christ,  was  evident  to  any  of  those  who  might 
have  had  any  particular  influence  in  stopping  it.  That  was 
not  in  the  spirit  of  the  times;  though  there  were  a  few 

'B.  N.  It.  1722  f.  653  ib.  1723  f.  166;  Cal.  F.  591;  Castelnau,  Bk.  IV. 
He  was  the  messenger. 
•Letts.  I,  456. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      271 

outside  the  contest  who  felt  it.  For  instance,  a  young  law 
student  of  Bordeaux  wrote  about  this  time  in  a  Latin  poem 
addressed  to  Charles  IX:  "Is  this  the  love  of  religion? 
Does  God  really  advise  the  accursed  strife  of  a  civil  war? 
.  .  .  God  is  never  pleased  by  a  sacrifice  of  human  blood. 
Piety  cannot  be  fought  for  with  arms."  But  there  were 
reasons  for  peace  which  appealed  to  men  who  could  not 
place  this  war  in  the  perspective  of  truth.  Catherine's 
dislike  of  it,  based  on  her  hatred  of  the  Guise,  her  jealousy 
for  her  own  authority,  her  deadly  fear  of  Spain,  were  only 
strengthened  by  the  lapse  of  time,  and  she  wanted  peace  at 
almost  any  price.  In  addition,  the  exhaustion  of  the  treas- 
ury was  becoming  so  evident  that  even  many  zealous  Cath- 
olics began  to  see  the  impossibility  of  continuing  the  war. 

But  the  members  of  the  extreme  orthodox  party  only 
redoubled  their  opposition  to  any  sort  of  compromise.  In 
Paris  suspected  Huguenots  were  daily  either  beaten  to  death 
in  the  streets,  or  thrown  into  the  river.  The  Parlement  of 
Paris  prepared  a  list  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  inhab- 
itants of  Orleans,  seven  ecclesiastics,  eighteen  lawyers  and 
the  rest  shopkeepers  and  merchants  of  various  sorts,  who 
were  to  be  immediately  hanged  as  soon  as  the  city  was 
taken.  Catherine  was  exceedingly  hated  by  these  ardent 
Catholics.  It  was  whispered  around  that  among  her  wait- 
ing-women there  were  not  four  who  were  orthodox  Roman 
Catholics.  This  opposition  found  a  spokesman,  whom 
Catherine  could  not  face  when,  early  in  February,  Guise 
came  from  the  camp  where  he  was  besieging  Orleans  and 
had  a  long  talk  with  both  the  Queen  Mother  and  his  pris- 
oner, the  Prince  of  Conde.  Returning  to  the  camp,  he 
pushed  the  siege  with  such  vigor  that  he  hoped,  with  the 
aid  of  ten  cannon  the  Queen  Mother  sent  him,  to  force  a 
surrender.^ 

But  on  the  eighteenth  day  of  February,  returning  in  the 
first  darkness  of  the  evening  to  his  quarters  after  inspecting 

'Courteault  (3),  51;  B.  N.  It.  1723  f.  76;  ib.  1725  f.  105,  fds.  fr.  3180; 
ib.  3952  f.  57;  A.  N.  K.  8.  Feb.  1563,  ib.  1500,  f.  27,  ib.  Feb.  5  ib..  f.  15. 
Conde,  II,  130;  B.  N.  It.  1722,  f.  674. 


272  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

a  battery,  he  wa8  shot  in  the  back  by  an  assassin  and  died 
in  a  few  days.  His  murderer  was  Jean  Poltrot,  Lord  of 
Merey,  a  Huguenot  nobleman,  twenty-six  years  old,  who 
had  joined  the  Catholic  camp  as  a  pretended  convert  some 
days  before.  Guise  was  almost  unaccompanied  and  the 
murderer  at  once  galloped  into  the  woods  and  escaped.  A 
huge  reward  was  immediately  offered  for  him.  He  became 
confused  in  the  forest,  wandered  in  a  circle,  and  was  arrested 
thirty-six  hours  later  not  far  from  the  scene  of  his  crime. 
Among  the  troops  of  Soubise  where  he  had  served,  Poltrot 
had  acquired  a  reputation  for  reckless  daring,  but  was 
laughed  at  a  good  deal  because  he  was  always  talking  of 
how  he  intended  to  kill  the  Duke  of  Guise.^ 

Catherine  examined  him  in  the  presence  of  members  of 
her  council  and  a  few  days  later  reported  to  the  Duchess  of 
Savoy  what  the  assassin  said : 

"He  told  me  voluntarily  and  without  any  pressing  that  the 
Admiral  had  given  him  a  hundred  ecus  to  do  this  evil  deed,  and 
that  he  did  not  want  to  do  it,  but  that  Beza  and  another  preacher 
had  persuaded  him  and  assured  him  that  if  he  did  it,  he  would 
go  straight  to  heaven.  Hearing  that,  he  decided  to  carry  out 
the  deed,  and,  in  addition,  he  said  that  the  Admiral  had  sent 
sixty  assassins  to  kill  Guise,  the  Duke  of  Montpensier,  Sansac, 
Cypierre  and  myself;  that  I  should  do  well  to  keep  a  strict  watch 
over  my  children  and  to  take  great  care  of  my  person,  because 
he  hated  me  very  much  and,  among  the  others  who  had  been  sent 
he  named  a  certain  red-headed  man,  who  yesterday  was  arrested 
in  the  court  of  the  chateau  at  Blois.  So  you  see,  Madame,  how 
that  righteous  man  who  says  that  he  doesn't  do  anything  except 
on  account  of  religion,  wants  to  put  us  out  of  the  way.  In  spite 
of  all  that  I  am  trying  to  make  a  peace,  because  I  see  well  that 
during  this  war  he  will  in  the  end  kill  my  children  and  strip 
us  of  all  our  best  people,  because,  to  tell  the  truth,  we  have 
made  a  very  great  loss  in  that  man  (Guise),  because  he  was 
the  greatest  captain  in  the  realm.  No  one  can  know  what  will 
happen  if  the  war  lasts,  because  the  Constable  is  a  prisoner  in 
Orleans  and  we  have  no  man  to  command  our  army,  except  the 
Marshal  Brissac,  and  he  is  not  physically  able  to  do  it.  Never- 
theless I  must  make  him  believe  that  he  is." 

*  Soubise,  72. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      273 

Catherine  then  goes  on  to  beg  her  sister-in-law  to  come 
and  bring  her  husband,  because  "If  we  have  peace  you  will 
be  able  to  help  us  in  many  ways  and  if  war  lasts  I  leave  you 
to  think  how  much  the  Duke  of  Savoy  will  be  necessary  to 
us  and  you  with  him."  ^  Catherine  soon  recovered  from 
the  panic  which  this  letter  shows.  The  red-headed  man, 
when  he  was  arrested,  proved  that  he  was  an  innocent 
Roman  Catholic,  and  Catherine  recovered  her  shrewd  judg- 
ment and  began  to  point  out  the  absurdities  in  Poltrot's 
first  confession.  The  question  of  whether  any  of  it  was  true 
has  been  much  debated.  He  alternately  retracted  and  re- 
asserted his  accusations  against  the  Admiral  and  his  friends 
in  a  way  hard  to  explain,  except  as  the  vagaries  of  terror  in 
a  man  whose  courage  had  completely  broken  down  in  the 
face  of  torture  and  death.  He  was  finally  burnt  with  red- 
hot  irons  and  then  torn  in  pieces  by  four  horses,  and  in  the 
midst  of  that  terror,  and  beside  himself  with  agony,  he  still 
alternately  repeated  and  denied  his  accusations.^ 

The  enemies  of  the  Huguenots  made  the  best  possible 
use  of  Poltrot's  confession.  It  was  written  out  next  day, 
manifestly  not  in  the  words  in  which  Poltrot  had  uttered  it, 
printed  and  sent  to  the  Huguenot  camp  with  the  hope  of 
causing  a  revolt  among  the  German  mercenaries.  Coligny 
published  a  reply  in  which  he  said  he  had  employed  Poltrot 
as  a  spy,  giving  him  twenty  ecus  for  his  first  mission  and 
when  he  brought  some  news  from  Guise's  camp  he  gave  him 
a  hundred,  in  order  that  he  might  buy  a  good  horse  to  go 
back  again  and  get  more  news.  He  had  heard  him  say  that 
it  would  be  easy  to  kill  the  Duke  of  Guise,  but  had  made  no 
reply  to  the  remark,  considering  it  rather  as  the  idle  brag- 
ging of  a  man  in  whom  he  had  none  too  much  confidence, 
but  whose  services  he  was  willing  to  use.  He  was  glad  that 
Guise  was  dead  because  he  was  an  enemy  of  God  and  the 
King.  After  information  had  come  to  him  that  Guise  had 
hired  assassins  to  kill  him  and  his  brother,  whenever  he  had 

*  Letts.  I,  516. 
•De  Thou,  ni,  403. 


274  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

heard  anyone  say  that  if  he  could,  he  would  kill  Guise  even 
in  his  own  camp,  he  had  not  attempted  to  turn  him  from 
such  a  design,  but  "on  his  life  and  his  honor  he  had  never 
sought  out  or  solicited  anyone  to  do  this,  neither  by  word, 
nor  by  money,  nor  by  promises,  directly  or  indirectly."  ^ 
The  weightiest  and  most  impartial  modern  historians  have 
seem  in  the  very  frankness  of  this  bald  statement  an  indica- 
tion of  truthfulness. 

Coligny  evidently  regarded  the  death  of  the  Duke  as  the 
just  judgment  of  God  upon  a  very  wicked  man  and  neither 
he  nor  Beza,  who  swore  he  had  never  spoken  to  Poltrot 
about  the  subject,  had  a  single  word  of  condemnation  for 
the  cowardly  crime.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  therefore, 
that  the  wife  and  son  of  the  murdered  man  regarded 
Coligny  as  the  murderer. 

As  we  have  seen,  Catherine,  because  of  her  own  past 
experience  and  the  advice  of  many  of  those  who  were  near 
to  her,  feared  Guise.  A  curious  record  of  the  attitude  toward 
him  in  the  inner  circle  of  her  friends  and  servants,  is  found 
in  a  secret  letter  written  to  her  by  the  French  Ambassador 
in  Madrid  the  day  after  Guise  was  assassinated.  It  was 
therefore  written  before  the  news  reached  Madrid,  for  the 
swiftest  couriers  from  Paris  to  Madrid  took  three  days  for 
the  journey.  He  tells  Catherine  her  daughter  wants  him  to 
write  and  tell  her  that  the  friends  of  France  at  the  Spanish 
court  are  much  astonished  to  see  the  effort  to  make  peace 
given  up  and  it  makes  them  the  more  sad  "because  it  pleases 
those  who  do  not  love  us,  and  we  get  word  from  France 
that  one  man  [he  means  Guise]  is  the  cause.  ...  I  will 
say  freely  that  there  is  only  one  danger:  that  is  to  say  if 
they  [the  Guise]  attain  the  position  they  desire,  it  will  be 
very  difficult  to  reduce  them  again  as  much  as  one  would 
want  to.  I  beg  you  burn  this  letter."  It  was  suspected  by  a 
number  of  people  that  Catherine  and  her  close  servants  felt 
in  this  way  about  Guise  and  therefore  the  suspicion  was 
whispered  at  court  that  she  had  hired  Poltrot.    There  is  no 

»Conde.  IV.  292. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      275 

evidence  whatever  to  support  it  and  it  is  highly  improb- 
able.i 

Many  of  the  Huguenots  were  much  less  restrained  even 
than  Coligny.  A  flood  of  poetry  celebrated  the  death  of  the 
tyrant  (Guise)  and  of  the  martyr  (Poltrot).  "Henry, 
Francis,  Guise  and  Anthony,"  sang  one  poet,  "tried  to  ruin 
the  church  of  God  and  they  are  all  dead  by  divine  judg- 
ment." Poems  on  Poltrot's  execution  called  him  the  most 
holy  man  of  our  time  and  bade  him  ascend  to  heaven  where 
God  would  open  for  him  the  gate.  For  some  years  at  least 
songs  were  written  on  the  anniversary  of  Poltrot's  death, 
which  hailed  him  "as  the  happy  man  chosen  of  God"  and 
"the  tenth  Paladin,  the  liberator  of  France."  ^  L'Histoire 
Ecclesiastique,  which  is  a  sort  of  ofl5cial  apologetic  history 
of  the  Reformed  church  and  the  Huguenot  party,  has  no 
word  of  blame  for  Poltrot,  but  says  that  just  before  he  did 
the  deed  "he  prayed  God  very  ardently  to  grant  him  the 
grace  to  change  his  intention  if  what  he  did  was  not  agree- 
able to  Him,  or  else  to  give  him  courage  to  kill  the  tyrant 
and  deliver  France  from  so  accursed  a  tyranny." 

It  is  difficult  for  a  modern  reader  to  understand  how 
many  sincerely  religious  people  could  regard  acts  of  treach- 
erous and  cowardly  murder  as  the  glorious  deeds  of  martyrs, 
but  he  might  as  well  give  up  the  attempt  to  understand  the 
sixteenth  century  unless  he  admits  the  fact  that  it  was  so. 
The  killing  of  one  of  their  own  side  was  always  regarded  as 
an  inspiration  of  the  devil,  but  the  highest  level  to  which 
most  good  men  of  the  sixteenth  century  on  either  side  of 
the  great  controversy  on  religion  could  rise  at  the  news  of 
the  assassination  of  one  of  the  enemies  of  their  cause  was, 
usually,  the  feeling  that  it  was  a  mysterious  providence  of 
God,  inflicting  His  just  vengeance  on  a  tyrant  or  a  seducer. 

The  funeral  of  the  Duke  was  magnificent.     Catherine 

wrote  admirable  letters  of  condolence  to  his  family  and 

showed  every  sign  of  regret  for  his  death  and  honor  to  his 

'Castelnau,  II,  182,  218;  Cable  (1),  pntd.  116;  Cal.  F.  1564,  p.  163. 
See  Note. 

'  Chansonnier,  II,  273,  Hist.  Ecc.  II,  349. 


276  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

memory.  She  also  scrupulously  maintained  her  promise  to 
the  Duchess  of  Guise  that  the  ofi&ce  of  Grand  Master  which 
the  Duke  had  taken  away  from  the  Constable  should  be 
inherited  by  the  young  Duke,  in  spite  of  the  Constable's 
desire  to  get  it  back.  Guise  had  been  a  soldier  all  his  life, 
but  he  had  earned  in  youth  a  reputation  for  humanity  which 
could  not  be  entirely  destroyed  even  by  the  "Massacre  of 
Vassy."  A  strong  critic  of  his  family  labeled  him  "a  gentle 
and  moderate  spirit"  too  much  ruled  by  his  "impetuous  and 
violent"  brother,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine.  A  Huguenot 
warrior  historian  called  him  "a  great  captain,  excellent  in 
all  his  faculties."  The  Venetian  Ambassador  wrote  that 
among  the  many  excellent  officers  of  France,  none  equalled 
Guise  in  wisdom  and  skill,  and  indeed  he  seems  the  ablest 
general  of  his  time.  His  religious  zeal  was  pronounced,  and 
one  of  his  bitterest  enemies  could  only  comment  on  it: 
"He  was  so  earnest  in  his  religion  that  he  thought  nothing 
evil  that  maintained  it."  ^ 

There  was  no  one  now  left  who  could  oppose  Catherine's 
desire  for  peace.  Indeed  Guise  himself  on  his  death  bed 
advised  her  to  make  peace  immediately  on  the  best  terms 
she  could.  Apparently  her  first  thought  about  the  best 
way  to  establish  peace  was  an  idea  which  very  much  puz- 
zled contemporary  historians.  She  sent  an  envoy  to  the 
Duke  of  Wiirtemberg,  and  offered  him  the  supreme  office 
under  the  King,  of  Lieutenant-General,  which  had  been 
held  successively  by  the  King  of  Navarre  and  the  Duke  of 
Guise,  and  which  would  now  naturally  fall,  so  long  as  the 
King  remained  a  minor,  to  the  Prince  of  Conde.  The  idea 
of  having  the  function  of  maintaining  order  and  the  com- 
mand of  the  armed  forces  of  the  state  in  the  hands  of  a 
foreigner,  seemed  almost  as  strange  to  Frenchmen  then  as  it 
would  seem  to  Frenchmen  now.  But  it  would  not  seem 
strange  to  an  Italian.  The  intense  violence  and  mutual 
suspicion  of  the  factions  in  the  various  states  of  Italy  had 

*  Letts.  I,  512,  513,  519;  de  Thou,  II,  682;  d'Aubigne,  II,  117;  Tom- 
maseo,  I,  496;  Cal.  F.  1563,  p.  157. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      277 

made  it  the  custom  for  several  generations  to  have  a  foreign 
podesta,  who  was  employed  at  a  fixed  salary  to  maintain 
order  because  neither  of  the  parties  would  trust  an  adherent 
of  the  other  to  control  the  armed  forces  of  the  state. 
Whether  Catherine  really  intended  to  employ  the  Duke  of 
Wiirtemberg  as  national  podesta  or  not  we  cannot  be  sure, 
for  it  is  just  as  probable  that  she  only  intended  to  create  a 
diversion  which  might  stop  the  plans  entertained  in  Ger- 
many of  taking  advantage  of  the  division  of  France  to  re- 
cover the  three  bishoprics  of  Metz,  Toul  and  Verdun  which 
her  husband  had  conquered  from  the  Emperor.  If  the  plan 
was  serious,  it  failed,  for  the  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg  de- 
clined to  consider  the  offer.^ 

After  his  brother's  burial,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  find- 
ing that  he  had  no  weight  whatever  in  the  royal  council, 
left  the  court  and  retired  to  his  archbishopric,  and  the  Queen 
Mother,  freed  from  all  opposition,  arranged  according  to 
her  convenience  for  a  conference  looking  toward  peace.^ 

The  Admiral  was  in  Normandy,  where  with  the  help  of 
the  English,  he  had  been  taking  towns  and  rapidly  extend- 
ing his  mastery  of  the  country.  He  could  not  therefore  be 
present.  But  each  side  brought  its  prisoners  and  the  Con- 
stable and  the  Prince  conferred  with  each  other  and  with 
the  Queen  Mother.  The  interview  had  been  arranged  on  a 
barge  which  was  moored  to  a  little  island  in  the  river  just 
above  Orleans.  Catherine,  with  her  restless  love  of  exer- 
cise, preferred  to  go  ashore  and  walk  up  and  down,  which 
they  did  for  two  hours.  The  next  day  they  met  again  on  the 
island  and  talked  for  three  hours  in  a  very  friendly  way. 
The  Prince  was  in  his  usual  merry  mood  and  it  was  noticed 
that  when  the  Queen  left  him  she  was  laughing  heartily. 
The  result  of  these  conferences  was  the  Edict  of  Amboise, 
published  on  the  19th  of  March,  1563.  The  higher  nobles 
were  granted  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  for  them- 

*De  Thou,  n,  400,  "leg^rete  d'une  femme."  Hist.  Ecc.,  Not©  Editor, 
865. 

»B.  N.  It.  1725  f.  56,  208. 


278  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

selves  and  their  dependents.  Lesser  nobles  had  liberty  of 
worship  only  for  their  families,  and  if  they  lived  in  a  town 
or  village  they  must  have  permission  from  their  overlord. 
Congregations  of  the  Reformed  church  which  could  not  re- 
ceive shelter  in  the  castles  of  the  nobles,  might  worship 
publicly  in  a  place  appointed  in  any  town  which  had  been 
Huguenot  on  the  7th  of  March,  and  in  addition,  in  the 
suburbs  of  one  town  in  each  senechaussee  and  bailliage  of 
the  kingdom.^  This  limitation  of  the  number  of  places 
where  the  Reformed  worship  might  be  held  was  a  restriction 
of  the  liberty  accorded  by  the  Edict  of  January. 

Although  the  bulk  of  those  with  political  influence  felt 
that  peace  was  necessary,  this  Edict  was  not  received  with 
universal  applause.  Seventy-two  ministers  of  the  Reformed 
church  protested  to  Conde  that,  as  he  had  taken  arms  to 
support  the  Edict  of  January,  he  ought  not  to  permit  any 
diminution  of  the  liberty  it  granted.  They  insisted  that 
the  King  should  receive  the  Reformed  church  under  his 
protection  and  "to  close  the  door  to  all  heresies  and  schisms 
and  the  troubles  which  can  arise  from  these  things,  he  ought 
to  punish  vigorously  all  atheists,  libertines.  Anabaptists  and 
other  heretics  or  schismatics."  The  main  points  of  this  pro- 
test were  supported  by  the  Admiral,  who  returned  from 
Normandy  with  the  army  a  few  days  after  the  accord  was 
made.  He  said  the  Protestants  were  never  in  better  condi- 
tion than  they  were  at  that  moment,  whereas  their  enemies 
were  demoralized  by  the  loss  of  their  leaders.  The  war  ought 
to  have  been  fought  to  a  victory  and  the  least  that  should 
have  been  accepted  was  the  entire  Edict  of  January.  Conde 
evidently  expected  to  obtain  a  very  easy  administration  of 
the  Edict,  for  Catherine  told  him  that  the  death  of  Guise 
had  no  less  set  her  free  than  it  had  him,  because  "by  the 
forces  he  had  about  the  King  and  her,  she  was  no  less  a  pris- 
oner than  Conde  had  been,"  and  the  Huguenot  leader  wrote 
to  Elizabeth  that  he  expected  to  see  the  Reformed  doctrine 
spread  very  rapidly,  for  "it  was  more  probable  that  there 

*Cal.  F.  200,  Isambert  14,  p.  135. 


THE  FIRST  CIVIL  WAR  ABOUT  RELIGION      279 

would  be  a  lack  of  ministers  to  distribute  the  truth,  than  of 
places  which  wished  to  receive  it."  ^ 

The  first  of  the  nine  recurrent  French  civil  wars  about 
religion  had  ended  in  the  victory  of  the  Huguenots.  It  had 
not  been  the  result  of  a  planned  conspiracy,  like  the  abortive 
conspiracy  of  Amboise,  or  the  still  more  abortive  conspiracy 
for  which  Conde  was  condemned  to  death  at  the  end  of  the 
reign  of  Francis  II.  Infractions  of  the  Edict  of  January,  the 
seizure  of  churches  by  the  Huguenots,  the  killing  of  Hugue- 
nots by  the  orthodox,  sometimes  by  mobs,  sometimes  under 
cover  of  the  law,  Huguenot  murders  in  reprisal,  like  those 
of  Fumel  and  de  la  Mothe  Gondrin,  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  Dauphiny,  with  sporadic  local  wars  in  the  south  of 
France,  brought  about  an  almost  unbearable  tension.  The 
killing  at  Vassy  made  a  general  rush  to  arms,  "for  the 
greater  part  of  the  nobility  having  heard  of  the  execution  at 
Vassy,  driven  by  good  will  and  partly  by  fear,  made  up  their 
minds  to  come  near  to  Paris  on  the  chance  that  the  pro- 
tectors of  the  Church  might  need  them.  In  that  way  the 
gentry  of  highest  standing  left  the  provinces  with  ten, 
twenty,  or  thirty  of  their  friends,  and  found  their  way  to 
the  main  body,  hiding  their  arms,  sleeping  at  the  inns  or  in 
the  fields,  and  paying  their  way  liberally."  ^ 

But  the  victory  of  the  Huguenots  in  this  spontaneous 
movement  of  church  against  state  was  more  apparent  than 
real.  It  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  if  the  ad- 
herents of  the  Calvinistic  doctrine  ever  had  any  chance  to 
persuade  the  French  people  to  renounce  the  Roman  obe- 
dience and  establish  a  national  church,  after  the  model  of 
the  churches  of  England,  some  of  the  Swiss  cantons,  some  of 
the  German  states  and  the  Scandinavian  kingdoms,  they 
lost  that  chance  by  taking  arms.  It  is  probable  that  the 
influence  of  the  Reformed  church  in  France,  either  actual  or 
potential,  was  never  as  great  after  the  1st  of  April,  1562,  as 
it  had  been  before.    At  least  this  was  the  opinion  of  the 

*Hist.  Ecc.  II,  422;  Castelnau,  I,  150;  pntd.  App.  d'Aumale,  I,  312,  313. 
*De  la  Noue:   "I  was  present." 


280  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Venetian  Ambassador,  who  wrote  to  the  Senate:  "If  it 
had  not  been  for  the  war,  France  would  be  at  present 
Huguenot,  because  the  people  were  so  rapidly  changing 
their  faith  and  the  ministers  had  acquired  such  credit  among 
them  that  they  persuaded  them  whatever  they  wished.  But 
when  they  passed  from  words  to  arms  and  commenced  to 
rob,  to  ruin  and  to  kill,  employing  a  thousand  cruelties,  the 
people  commenced  to  say,  'What  sort  of  a  religion  is  this? 
These  men  pretend  to  understand  the  Gospel  better  than 
others  and  where  do  they  find  any  indication  that  Christ 
commanded  us  to  take  the  goods  of  our  neighbors,  and  to 
murder  our  comrades?' "  ^  Before  the  war  was  over,  the 
poet  Ronsard  called  on  Beza  to  spare  his  native  land. 
"Preach  no  more  in  France  a  gospel  of  arms,  a  Christ  decked 
with  pistols,  all  blackened  with  smoke,  with  a  steel  cap  on 
his  head,  and  in  his  hand  a  broad  cutlass,  red  with  human 
blood."  The  Huguenots  were  fighting  in  self-defense,  but 
it  seemed  to  France  that  they  were  fighting  for  conquest. 
*Rel.  I,  4,  p.  187;  Ven.  Amb.,  1569;  Ronsard,  VII,  22. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

PEACE   AND   POLITICS.      ENGLAND   AND   SPAIN 

No  one  rejoiced  more  heartily  over  peace  than  Cath- 
erine. She  wrote  to  the  Marshal  Montmorency,  in  whose 
moderate  counsels  she  reposed  a  good  deal  of  confidence: 

"Peace  is  a  public  necessity  so  plainly  perceived  by  every- 
body that  there  is  no  one  who  ought  not  to  receive  this  good 
as  a  special  grace  and  favor  from  God,  the  weight  of  whose 
hand  ought  to  make  us  recognize  how  much  He  is  angered  with 
us  and  that  this  peace  made  by  His  bounty  is  a  sign  that  He 
has  lessened  His  anger  and  had  pity  on  this  poor  people.  .  .  . 
And  besides,  I  will  tell  you  between  us  two  that  the  Admiral 
has  not  less  than  seven  thousand  cavalry.  Think,  I  beg  you, 
isn't  it  a  good  reason  to  call  this  a  lucky  peace,  knowing  what 
we  know  also  of  the  forces  which  are  getting  ready  in  Germany, 
beside  what  the  kingdom  of  England  is  raising  on  its  side  and 
the  Empire  is  doing  in  order  to  get  ready  to  recover  Metz?"^ 

The  foreign  power  from  which  Catherine  thought  danger 
was  most  imminent  just  at  this  particular  moment,  was 
England;  for  Elizabeth  had  already  a  good  foothold  in 
France  which  she  was  entirely  unwilling  to  relinquish  be- 
cause her  allies,  the  Huguenots,  had  made  peace.  Elizabeth 
had  succeeded  to  the  throne  of  England  two  years  before 
the  death  of  Francis  II  gave  Catherine  the  chief  authority 
in  France.  The  young  girl  of  twenty-five  lacked  Cath- 
erine's experience,  and  she  was  confronted  with  very  much 
the  same  problem — how  to  save  a  kingdom  financially  ex- 
hausted, from  the  horrors  of  a  civil  war  caused  by  difference 
of  opinion  in  religion,  which  might  deliver  it  a  prey  to 
powerful  neighbors.  She  shared  Catherine's  fundamental 
indifference  as  to  the  theological  questions  in  dispute; 
though  she  knew  more  about  them  than  Catherine  did. 

'  Letts.  X,  96. 

281 


282  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

But,  unlike  her  sister  Mary,  religion  was  not  to  her  the  chief 
interest  of  life.  She  rather  resembled  her  father  in  desiring 
above  all  things  to  be  the  strong  sovereign  of  a  great  nation. 
In  spite  of  her  inexperience,  she  had  two  enormous  advan- 
tages over  her  neighboring  Queen  in  the  great  task  which 
lay  before  her.  She  was  native  to  her  realm  and  instinc- 
tively understood  and  shared  the  feelings  of  her  people. 
Her  power  was  her  own  and  not  the  power  of  a  regent. 
Though  less  practised,  she  was  as  clever  as  Catherine  at 
cajolery  and  just  as  lacking  in  any  scruples  about  truth- 
fulness. 

Elizabeth  feared  two  things — civil  war  in  England, 
caused  by  difference  of  opinion  in  religion,  and  a  general 
European  war  to  suppress  Protestantism  by  force,  in  which 
she  knew  she  would  be  forced  to  become  the  chief  of  the 
Protestants.  She  made  an  abrupt  change  in  the  policy  of 
her  predecessor  and  sister  Mary,  but,  in  marked  contrast  to 
Catherine's  attempt  to  stand  between  the  two  parties,  she 
threw  in  her  lot  decidedly  with  one.  She  swept  away  all  her 
sister's  legislation  in  regard  to  religion  and  reestablished  the 
national  church  of  her  father,  renouncing  the  Roman  obedi- 
ence and  adopting  a  creed  decidedly  Protestant.  She  aban- 
doned not  only  her  sister's  party  but  also  her  sister's  policy 
of  active  persecution,  and,  although  the  Roman  Catholic 
worship  was  forbidden  by  law,  in  all  other  respects  she  tried 
to  make  the  position  of  quiet  Roman  Catholics  as  tolerable 
in  England  as  was  possible.  Above  all,  peace  and  order  was 
sternly  maintained.  The  Catholic  dissenters  were  neither 
allowed  to  seize  churches,  nor  did  they  suffer  from  mob 
attacks  as  in  France.  This  policy  in  meeting  the  first 
danger,  a  policy  to  which  her  inclinations  and  her  inherited 
position  naturally  urged  the  daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn,  at 
once  exposed  her  to  the  second  danger.  As  the  strongest 
Protestant  power,  England  would  naturally  become  the 
great  objective  of  any  general  movement  to  suppress  Prot- 
testantism  by  force,  and,  in  the  house  of  Guise,  such  a 
movement  putting  forward  the  claim  of  their  niece  to  the 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    283 

throne  of  England  would  find  leaders  who  joined  personal 
interest  to  zeal.  Almost  from  the  beginning  of  her  reign, 
therefore,  Elizabeth  had  begun,  as  far  as  her  foreign  policy- 
was  concerned,  to  do  three  things.  She  formed  secret  con- 
nections with  the  Huguenot  party,  and  as  a  corollary  she 
attacked  the  power  of  the  Guise.  She  encouraged  the 
Protestant  party  in  Scotland  in  its  opposition  to  the  Crown, 
in  order  to  limit  the  availability  of  Mary  Stuart  as  an 
orthodox  claimant  to  the  English  throne.  Thirdly,  she  had 
tried  to  unite  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany  in  a  de- 
fensive league  to  defend  Protestantism  against  any  common 
attack  by  the  Roman  Catholic  powers.^ 

Although  Elizabeth  and  Catherine  during  their  whole 
life  were  always  exchanging  honeyed  words,  it  is  quite  evi- 
dent, to  anyone  who  reads  their  letters  in  the  light  of  events, 
that  neither  had  any  great  confidence  in  the  other  and  that 
both  were  entirely  justified  in  their  suspicions.  In  spite  of 
her  astuteness,  vanity  often  led  Elizabeth  into  incautious 
speech,  a  mistake  into  which  Catherine  rarely  fell,  and  just 
about  this  time  we  have  it  quoted  from  her  own  lips  that 
she  regarded  her  relations  with  the  Queen  Regent  of  France 
as  a  sort  of  a  game  of  wits.  She  said  to  a  foreign  envoy  that 
"she  was  an  Englishwoman  and  that  the  Queen  of  France 
was  a  Florentine  and  now  it  would  be  seen  which  of  the  two 
would  handle  her  affairs  the  better."  What  is  more,  Cath- 
erine knew  that  Elizabeth  did  not  have  any  too  high  an 
opinion  of  her  ability,  because  it  had  been  reported  to  her 
that  she  had  said  that  one  who  was  born  a  merchant's 
daughter  could  not  be  altogether  competent  to  govern  a 
kingdom.^ 

Elizabeth  seemed  to  lay  her  cards  on  the  table  at  the 
beginning  of  the  game,  by  declaring  to  Catherine  that  the 
origin  of  the  war  was  the  personal  quarrel  between  the 
Prince  of  Conde  and  the  Duke  of  Guise,  and  that  the  Duke 
of  Guise,  having  drawn  to  his  side  all  those  who  desired  to 

»Cal.  F.,  1560,  Dec. 

*Granvelle  (2),  I,  552;  B.  N.  It.  1725,  f.  25. 


284  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

suppress  dissent  from  the  Pope,  had  threatened  to  attack 
the  Prince  of  Conde,  whereupon  the  Prince  of  Conde  had 
prepared  to  defend  himself  by  getting  the  allegiance  of 
those  who  "feared  the  invasion  of  their  consciences."  She 
advised  Catherine  to  keep  out  of  the  quarrel  and  try  to 
control  both  parties  without  belonging  to  either.  The  fight 
might  grow  into  a  general  war  about  religion  and  she  per- 
sonally would  not  suffer  the  House  of  Guise  to  become  too 
strong,  lest  they  should  attack  her  through  their  niece,  the 
Queen  of  Scotland ;  "as  they  had  tried  to  do  in  the  time  of 
Francis  II."  Elizabeth  accepted,  however,  the  phrase  of  one 
of  her  diplomatic  agents:  "Fallere  fallentem  non  est  fraus," 
and  did  not  show  her  best  card  in  this  seemingly  frank 
letter.  She  did  not  scruple  to  give  instructions  to  her 
envoys,  to  make  the  Huguenots  think  that  she  was  able  to 
stand  between  the  two  parties,  and  to  keep  in  mind  that  if 
foreigners  are  to  come  in  at  all  she  "may  as  well  make  her 
profit  either  of  accord  or  discord  as  any  neighbor."  ^ 

The  particular  profit  which  Elizabeth  wanted  to  get  out 
of  this  trouble  was  the  return  of  Calais,  which  had  been  lost 
by  her  sister.  She  said  nothing  about  this  at  first  to  the 
Huguenots,  though  they  could  not  have  been  ignorant  that, 
by  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  Calais 
ought  to  be  surrendered  to  England  by  France  in  five  years 
and  that  France  would  never  keep  the  agreement  unless 
forced  to  do  so.  In  October  Elizabeth  had  landed  six  thou- 
sand men  at  Havre  de  Grace,  which  the  Huguenots  handed 
over  to  her,  sent  some  money  and  promised  more  to  pay 
the  German  mercenaries.  What  she  really  intended  is 
shown  in  her  letter  to  her  envoys  in  Germany.  "The  Queen 
has  resolved  to  keep  Havre  until  these  troubles  cease  and 
she  is  more  assured  of  Calais:  such  reasons  as  the  world 
should  understand,  she  has  caused  to  be  printed;  which 
Cecil  will  send  to  them."  ^ 

After  the  loss  of  the  battle  of  Dreux,  Coligny,  who  re- 

*  Forbes,  II,  23;  Cal.  F.  1562,  p.  637. 
»Cal.  F.,  1663,  p.  3,  p.  74,  p.  360. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    285 

treated  into  Normandy,  had  asked  Elizabeth  for  ten  thou- 
sand men  and  the  money  to  pay  his  German  mercenaries. 
One  of  the  great  Huguenot  nobles  was  sent  into  England 
with  a  blank  sheet  of  parchment  bearing  the  signatures  of 
Conde,  the  Admiral  and  nine  other  Huguenot  chiefs.  On 
that  parchment  there  was  written  the  so-called  treaty  of 
Hampton  Court,  which  provided  among  other  things  that 
Elizabeth  should  keep  the  town  of  Havre  de  Grace  until  the 
town  of  Calais  was  restored  to  her,  either  before  or  at  the 
time  set  for  its  restoration  in  the  Treaty  of  Cateau-Cam- 
bresis  (1567).  This  provision  of  the  treaty  with  England 
had  been  entirely  neglected  by  the  Huguenot  leaders  in 
making  their  peace  and  Elizabeth  had  reason  to  accuse  them 
of  want  of  good  faith  toward  her.^ 

The  Admiral  and  the  Prince  of  Conde  urged  upon  her 
with  perfect  truth  that  if  she  should  "stain  this  with  a  pri- 
vate matter  of  her  own  and  under  pretense  of  religion  seek 
her  own  gain,  it  should  be  dishonor  to  her  and  how  evil  the 
papists  and  all  others  would  speak  of  her."  But  when  she 
refused  to  listen  or  to  give  up  her  own  advantage  for  the 
sake  of  the  common  cause,  they  were  not  strong  enough  to 
take  the  stand  of  one  "who  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt  and 
changeth  not."  If  the  transaction  may  be  so  interpreted  as 
to  free  the  Huguenots  of  a  lack  of  patriotism,  the  charge  of 
breach  of  a  promise  made  to  their  ally  remains.  The 
truth  is  they  had  laid  themselves  open  to  the  sharpest  criti- 
cism by  bringing  the  English  into  France  and  putting  the 
port  of  Havre  de  Grace  into  their  hands.  It  was  a  great 
rallying  cry  when  the  King  called  on  his  subjects  to  "drive 
the  English  and  Germans  from  France."  ^ 

The  group  of  moderate  men,  composed  largely  of  old 
servants  of  the  Crown,  expressed  their  delight  with  the 
peace,  but  it  was  exceedingly  unpopular  with  the  extreme 

*Cal.  F.,  1563,  pp.  266-273. 

'Cal.  F.,  1563,  Mar.  30,  ib.  p.  253,  539;  B.  N.  It.  1722,  f.  586;  Conde, 
IV,  44;  Cal.  F.  1562,  p.  377.    See  Note. 


286  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

orthodox  party.  In  Paris  very  indecent  attacks  upon  the 
Queen  Mother  were  freely  posted  about  the  city  and  it  was 
openly  said  among  the  nobles  of  the  extreme  faction  in  the 
south  of  France  that  the  Estates  General  had  made  a  great 
mistake  in  giving  the  regency  to  Catherine.  The  Spanish 
Ambassador  took  it  upon  himself  to  become  the  mouthpiece 
of  discontent  and  the  Queen  Mother  finally  told  him  that 
he  talked  as  if  "he  were  the  governor  and  ruler  of  France." 
The  Venetian  Ambassador  had  the  same  feeling  about 
Catherine's  surrender  to  Huguenot  influence,  although 
he  did  not  express  it  to  Catherine.  He  writes  that  she  is 
putting  Huguenots  into  all  the  vacant  places;  as,  for  exam- 
ple, the  two  new  marshals  she  has  made,  Vielleville  and 
Bordillon,  and  he  asked  to  be  relieved  because  he  feels  sure 
that  he  is  no  longer  persona  grata.  "He  has  been  obliged  to 
oppose  so  much  the  people  in  whose  hands  the  government 
is  now  put,  that  he  is  called  a  papist."  ^ 

Catherine  paid  but  little  attention  to  opposition  and 
criticism.  She  felt  sure  she  had  done  not  only  the  right, 
but  the  absolutely  necessary  thing.  She  said  to  the  Ambas- 
sador of  Tuscany,  "I  was  forced  to  do  what  I  have  done.  I 
am  certain  that  this  question  can  never  be  resolved  by  arms. 
Even  if  we  had  won  a  battle,  we  should  have  had  to  grant  to 
the  Huguenots  conditions  very  much  like  those  we  have 
granted.  If  we  were  beaten,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
whole  kingdom  would  have  fallen  into  their  hands.  I  have 
therefore  at  any  price  stopped  the  war  which  couldn't  be 
anything  but  disastrous."  ^ 

The  war  had  brought  great  misery :  the  tilling  of  fields  in 
many  places  was  abandoned  and  a  great  number  of  cities 
and  villages  had  been  sacked  and  burnt.  "The  poor  peas- 
ants driven  from  their  houses,  held  for  ransom  and  robbed, 
today  by  one  and  tomorrow  by  the  other  side,  abandoning 
all  they  possessed,  were  flying  like  wild  animals  through  the 

*B.  N.  Dupuy,  523  f.  2,  B.  N.  It.  1725,  f.  114,  f.  105,  111  ib.  1726,  f.  106; 
NouvB  Acqs.  20598  f.  69,  A.  N.  K.  1509,  f.  106. 
'Palandri,  104. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    287 

fields  in  order  not  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  those  who  had  no 
mercy."  ^ 

In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  many  of  the  parlements  to 
registering  the  Edict,  a  flood  of  private  and  public  protests 
and  the  formation  of  associations  of  Catholics  to  support 
religion,  Catherine  proceeded  to  do  her  best  to  enforce  the 
Edict.  She  wrote,  for  example,  to  Monluc  to  say  that  the 
Prince  of  Conde  had  sent  word  to  the  Huguenots  to  lay 
down  their  arms  and  go  home  and  live  in  obedience 
to  the  King,  and  she  would  see  to  it  that  they  were 
allowed  to  live  in  peace,  without  anybody  attacking  them  or 
troubling  them.  This  can  only  be  done  by  ''strong  and 
severe  justice,  which  I  am  sure  you  will  execute  upon  those, 
as  much  on  one  side  as  on  the  other,  who  may  wish  to  con- 
travene the  present  course,  troubling  the  public  peace  and 
desiring  to  bring  us  back  to  the  misery  and  calamity  from 
which  we  have  just  escaped."  When  the  train  of  the  Prince 
of  Conde's  wife  was  attacked  just  outside  the  gates  of  Paris 
and  one  of  her  attendants  was  killed,  Catherine  herself 
ordered  three  of  the  captains  who  were  concerned  in  the 
affair  to  be  hung.  When  the  Estates  of  Provence  wrote  that 
the  return  of  the  Huguenots  to  their  homes  "would  excite  a 
thousand  vengeances  and  that  they  would  sooner  abandon 
their  country  than  associate  with  those  from  whom  they 
had  received  so  much  injury,"  ^  Catherine  turned  a  deaf  ear. 
All  during  the  year,  in  spite  of  most  discouraging  news  and 
terrible  complaints  from  both  sides,  she  tried  to  have  the 
Edict  upheld  without  fear  or  favor.  She  wrote  a  royal  letter 
to  the  Ambassador  in  Spain  that  was  justified  by  events. 
"Peace  is  being  established  little  by  little  everywhere,  for  it 
is  not  possible  that  a  trouble  of  such  long  standing  could  be 
pacified  in  a  single  day,  but  I  hope  that  every  day  things 
will  become  more  satisfactory." 

Catherine  rather  skilfully  turned  one  of  her  outstanding 

*Castelnau,  Bk.  V,  Ch.  1. 

*  Letts.  I,  552;  II,  29,  47,  60,  115,  etc.  B.  N.  Nouvs.  Acqs.  20598,  f.  84, 
94,  97,  162.  171.  187,  195.  fds.  fr.  6001.  f.  28.  32;  42  ib.  6627,  f.  13:  It.  1725, 
f.  17.  34;  Dupuy.  523.  f.  27. 


288  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

dangers  into  a  help.  In  spite  of  the  exhausted  finances  of 
the  Crown,  the  mutual  suspicions  of  treachery  and  the 
opposition  of  some  of  her  councillors,  she  insisted  upon 
attacking  the  English  garrison  of  six  thousand  men  in 
Havre  de  Grace.  She  flung  herself  personally  into  the  prep- 
arations for  the  siege  with  a  zeal  and  activity  she  had  never 
shown  during  the  civil  war,  ordering  sixteen  new  cannons 
mounted  "so  that  we  can  give  the  town  a  furious  battery 
with  thirty  or  forty  pieces"  and  buying  large  quantities  of 
ammunition  in  Lorraine  and  Germany.  She  also  gave  direct 
orders  for  the  conduct  of  operations  during  the  opening  days 
of  the  siege.  The  besieging  army,  in  which  the  Huguenots 
joined  the  Catholics,  was  commanded  by  Conde,  the  Con- 
stable and  the  Marshals.  Catherine  brought  the  young 
King  down  the  river  and  waited  close  by  until  the  town  was 
ready  to  surrender  in  the  end  of  July,  1563.  The  garrison 
was  allowed  to  retire  to  England  with  everything  belonging 
to  themselves  and  their  Queen  and  on  the  first  of  August 
the  Queen  and  the  young  King  left  the  camp.  Catherine 
followed  this  victory  by  having  her  son  declare  his  majority 
before  the  Parlement  of  Rouen  on  the  17th  of  August.  1563, 
and  the  next  day  he  touched  those  afflicted  with  the  King's 
evil  that  by  healing  them  he  might  prove  that  like  his 
ancestors  he  was  the  anointed  of  God.* 

The  young  lad  of  thirteen  was  certainly  not  yet  anointed 
with  the  spirit  of  mature  common-sense,  as  is  shown  by  a 
curious  document  which  has  survived  from  this  time.  It  is 
a  wager  made  between  the  King  and  one  of  his  gentlemen, 
Monsieur  de  Chaulnes,  that  three  years  from  that  day  the 
King  would  be  able  to  kiss  his  own  foot.  If  he  lost,  the 
King  promised  to  give  a  thousand  crowns  to  certain  named 
valets  of  his  wardrobe.  In  spite  of  this  chance  record  of 
skylarking  with  his  attendants,  he  was  a  quiet  boy  and 
exceedingly  obsequious  to  his  mother,  in  whose  hands  the 
authority  rested  entirely. 

*  Letts.  I,  520  ("I  haven't  a  sou"),  II,  26,  56;  B.  N.  It.  1725,  f.  18; 
Arch.  C.  I,  p.  231;  Letts.  II,  85  N. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    289 

Catherine  had  now  thoroughly  developed  her  character- 
istic policy  of  balancing  the  parties  and  standing  between 
the  two  so  as  to  base  her  power  upon  their  mutual  jealousy. 
The  jealousy  was  now  chiefly  on  the  side  of  the  extreme 
orthodox  party.  Catherine  and  her  old  friend  the  Duchess 
of  Guise  had  a  stormy  scene.  The  Spanish  Ambassador 
who  got  his  information  almost  entirely  from  the  Guise 
faction  wrote  that  there  were  "many  heretics  around  the 
person  of  the  King.  Last  Sunday  his  tutor  sent  to  call  him 
to  vespers  and  he  did  not  come.  It  was  found  that  they 
were  instructing  him  by  reading  to  him  a  book  called  Pan- 
tagruel,  written  by  an  Anabaptist  full  of  a  thousand  scoffs 
at  religion  and  condemned  as  impious  by  the  Sorbonne." 
The  Ambassador  complained  that  the  Queen  Mother  was 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Chancellor  and  the  Admiral 
and  his  brothers  and  it  was  true  that  Catherine  was  using 
the  advice  and  help  of  the  Chatillon  brothers  as  she  had  used 
it  in  the  summer  and  fall  before  the  civil  war.^ 

The  greatest  of  all  Catherine's  troubles  was  the  insistent 
demand  of  the  family  of  the  Duke  of  Guise  that  Coligny 
should  be  tried  for  murder.  In  this  situation  the  Admiral 
had  been  supported  not  only  by  his  old  comrade,  the  Prince 
of  Conde,  but  also  by  his  old  antagonist,  his  uncle,  the 
Constable.  The  affair  dragged  along  until  the  widow, 
dressed  in  deep  mourning,  accompanied  by  all  the  ladies  of 
her  house  and  by  a  large  number  of  princes  and  nobles, 
appeared  before  the  King  in  church  at  the  close  of  mass, 
fell  upon  her  knees  and  asked  that  justice  should  be  done 
for  the  death  of  her  husband.  The  little  King  was  much 
moved;  tears  came  to  his  eyes,  and  he  promised  justice. 
Coligny  refused  to  be  tried  before  the  Parlement  of  Paris, 
which  he  said  had  always  been  hostile  to  him,  and  insisted 
upon  being  heard  only  before  the  royal  council.  The  rumor 
was  that  both  sides  were  secretly  mustering  their  adherents. 

*  Letts.  II,  85,  N.  B.  N.  Port.  Font.  305  f.  458  fds.  fr.  3256;  It.  1724 
f.  31,  46.  123,  165.  A.  N.  K.  1500.  Sept.  30;  ib.  1499.  Nov.  23, 


290  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

To  escape  trouble,  the  King  finally  took  matters  into  his 
own  hands  by  reserving  the  case  to  himself  and  promising 
to  announce  his  decision  at  the  end  of  three  years.  But 
hate  remained  unappeased.^ 

Even  worse,  the  assassination  of  Guise  seemed  to  become 
a  fashionable  model.  During  the  next  ten  or  twelve  years 
the  habit  of  cowardly  murder  by  attacks  from  behind  or  by 
several  men  upon  one,  became  a  firmly  established  custom 
in  France.  This  custom  was  regarded  as  an  imported  one. 
In  1563  the  Provost  of  Paris,  planning  to  hire  assassins  to 
murder  an  enemy,  writes  to  a  friend  that  he  proposes  to 
deal  with  him  "in  the  Italian  fashion."  And  Pasquier  wrote 
of  a  man  who  "brooded  in  his  soul  during  six  entire  years  an 
Italian  vengeance."  The  Protestant  author  of  a  book  pub- 
lished in  1566  explains,  in  a  chapter  on  "Some  Homicides  of 
our  Times,"  what  this  means. 

"Since  France  has  learned  the  manner  of  Italy  in  the  matter 
of  killings  and  the  habit  has  arisen  of  bargaining  with  'assassins' 
(a  new  word,  because  it  has  been  necessary  to  find  new  terms 
for  new  wickedness)  to  go  and  cut  the  throat  of  such  and  such 
people  as  one  might  bargain  for  some  work  with  a  mason  or  a 
carpenter  ...  it  would  almost  be  a  novelty  to  have  several 
days  pass  without  some  such  thing  happening,  whereas  previ- 
ously, perhaps  in  a  man's  whole  life,  he  would  not  have  known 
of  a  murder  ten  times.  .  .  .  We  know  that  it  was  the  ancient 
custom  in  France,  kept  more  religiously  than  in  any  other 
country,  to  attack  an  enemy  openly,  not  taking  him  without 
arms  or  otherwise  at  a  disadvantage,  but  warning  him  and  giving 
him  the  time  to  draw  his  sword,  even  considering  it  unfair  to 
attack  him  two  to  one.  ...  Of  all  which  I  know  well  that  I 
have  often  heard  the  Italians  make  great  fun.  For,  when  they 
have  once  bitten  the  end  of  their  finger  by  their  teeth  by  way 
of  menace,  everybody  knows  that,  if  they  attack  their  man  in 
front,  it  is  only  because  they  are  unable  to  attack  him  from 
behind.  They  take  good  care  not  to  say  'defend  thyself  and 
still  better  care  not  to  attack  him  imless  they  are  at  least  two 
to  one."  2 

*B.  N.  It.  1724  f.  40;  Conde,  IV,  17. 

•Cal.  F.,  1563,  p.  92;  Pasquier  (1),  Bk.  IX,  Ch.  20;  Estienne,  Ch.  18. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    291 

Ten  years  later  a  Catholic  writer  paints  in  the  darkest 
colors  the  spread  of  this  degenerate  custom. 

"In  short,  there  is  no  sort  of  evil  which  those  who  call  them- 
selves nobles  and  gentlemen  do  not  do  nowadays  and  they  make 
a  virtue  of  every  wickedness  and  principally  of  assassination, 
which  is  at  the  present  so  common  among  them,  that  the  bravest 
and  most  ready  of  them  do  not  deign  or  do  not  dare  any  longer 
to  lay  their  hands  on  their  sword  against  another,  but  they  lie 
in  wait  for  him  to  whom  they  wish  evil  or  they  cause  him  to  be 
followed  and  ambushed  by  their  killers,  who  fire  upon  him  and 
kill  him  by  shots  of  the  pistol  or  arquebus;  or,  if  indeed  they 
draw  their  own  swords,  they  do  it  without  any  warning  to  him 
whom  they  wish  to  assassinate,  running  their  sword  or  dagger 
into  him  while  they  are  saying  good  day  to  him  and  pretending 
to  kiss  him  and  embrace  him.  Behold  the  virtues  which  now 
stand  out  in  our  nobles  and  gentlemen  of  France!  I  am  not 
talking  except  of  the  bad  ones,  the  number  of  which  exceeds  by 
more  than  three  to  one  the  number  of  the  good  and  virtuous." 

About  the  same  time  the  Estates  General  (1576)  called 
for  special  laws  against  those  who  "hire  themselves  out  for 
money  to  commit  murder."  ^ 

That  this  evil  custom  of  assassination  which  spread  so 
rapidly,  was  not  native  but  an  importation  was  not  the 
opinion  of  Frenchmen  only;  at  least  two  Italians  have 
recorded  the  same  impression.  The  Nuncio  wrote  to 
the  Cardinal  of  Como,  "In  France  they  are  commencing  to 
introduce  very  commonly  that  pestiferous  custom  of  exact- 
ing vengeance  for  injuries  with  arquebus  shots;  a  thing 
which  a  few  years  before  was  not  even  known  to  that 
nation."  The  Venetian  Ambassador  wrote  to  the  Senate, 
"I  do  not  understand  that  this  nation  has  ever  used  those 
vendettas  which  are  carried  out  in  other  countries  by 
poisons,  assassinations,  or  other  means;  which  are  here  held 
in  the  very  greatest  abomination  by  all."  The  spread  of 
this  evil  custom  was  of  course  enormously  helped  by  the 
civil  wars,  in  which,  according  to  a  writing  dedicated  to 

*Haton,  II,  854;  Picot,  G.,  II,  552. 


292  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Michel  de  I'Hospital,  "it  seemed  less  criminal  and  less  dan- 
gerous to  kill  a  man  than  a  sheep."  ^ 

That  Catherine  felt  these  tremendous  moral  dangers 
that  were  pressing  upon  France,  there  is  nowhere  any  evi- 
dence, but,  curiously  enough,  we  have  just  at  this  time  a 
somewhat  long  record  of  her  ideas  about  the  way  in  which 
France  ought  to  be  ruled.  The  cause  of  her  making 
it  was  as  follows.  She  was  very  fond  of  riding,  but 
apparently  she  rode  with  more  boldness  than  skill.  At  all 
events,  she  had  during  her  life  a  number  of  rather  serious 
horseback  accidents  and  her  growing  weight  rendered  falls 
dangerous.  In  September,  1563,  while  she  was  coming  back 
from  hunting,  her  hackney  fell  under  her,  injuring  her  head 
and  arms.  She  made  light  of  it,  as  she  was  wont  to  make 
light  of  any  of  her  ailments,  and  not  only  refused  to  rest 
but  continued  to  eat  great  quantities  of  melons  and  other 
fruits  of  which  she  was  very  fond.  A  dangerous  illness 
followed.  Others  thought  of  the  possibility  of  her  death, 
and  perhaps  Catherine  was  at  least  made  mindful  of  mor- 
tality, for  she  dictated  a  long  letter  to  her  son;  a  thing 
otherwise  superfluous;  for  she  never  had  been  separated 
from  him  for  more  than  a  few  days  at  a  time  and  mani- 
festly never  intended  to  be.  She  gave  him  advice  how  to 
reign  in  order  to  restore  the  kingdom  to  the  flourishing 
condition  in  which  it  was  in  the  time  of  his  father  and  his 
grandfather.  One  half  of  the  letter  is  occupied  by  a  pro- 
gram for  the  royal  day.  This  was  to  be  so  regulated  as  to 
please  the  nobility  by  allowing  them  access  to  him  in  the 
morning  while  he  is  being  dressed,  and  also  by  spending  a 
good  part  of  his  time  with  them.  At  least  twice  a  week  he 
ought  to  give  a  ball  after  supper  and  twice  a  week  or  more 
he  ought  to  join  with  his  nobles  in  some  athletic  sport, 
"because  I  have  often  heard  your  grandfather  say  that  two 
things  are  necessary  to  live  in  peace  with  the  French,  and 
to  make  them  love  their  King:  to  keep  them  happy  and  to 
occupy  them  in  some  athletic  exercise."    "Every  two  weeks 

*  Arch.  Vat.,  Sept.,  1573;  Nuncio  Rel.  I,  4,  p.  240;  Waddington  ctd.  185. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    293 

or  so  you  must  give  audience,  for  that  pleases  your  subjects 
extremely."  In  addition,  he  must  read  all  dispatches  which 
arrive  and  receive  all  deputations  from  the  provinces,  taking 
care  to  speak  to  them  every  time  they  present  themselves 
in  his  room.  "I  have  seen  your  father  and  grandfather  do 
this  and  when  there  was  nothing  else  to  talk  about,  they 
even  went  so  far  as  to  talk  to  them  about  their  own  house- 
hold affairs."  ^ 

He  must  always  carry  around  in  his  pocket  two  lists — 
one  containing  the  names  of  all  the  royal  officers  even  down 
to  the  very  smallest  in  the  kingdom,  and  the  other  the  value 
of  all  the  offices  which  are  in  the  gift  of  the  King.  The 
instant  he  heard  of  a  vacancy  (and  one  or  two  of  the  chief 
men  in  each  province  ought  to  be  charged  with  the  duty  of 
immediately  notifying  him  of  any  vacancy)  he  should,  by 
the  use  of  these  two  lists,  immediately  fill  it,  writing  the 
letter  of  notification  himself  and  not  handing  it  over  to  a 
secretary.  If  anybody  importuned  him  for  an  office  he 
never  ought  to  be  allowed  to  receive  it.  He  ought  to  know 
the  names  of  the  chief  people  in  every  province  of  the  king- 
dom and  he  should  take  pains  to  have  in  each  province  at 
least  a  dozen,  more  or  less,  to  whom  he  ought  to  give  a  great 
deal  of  patronage.  This  would  please  them  so  much  that 
they  would  keep  him  constantly  informed  of  the  smallest 
thing  that  stirred  in  their  neighborhood.  In  every  city  of 
the  kingdom  he  ought  also  to  have  three  or  four  of  the 
principal  burghers  and  as  many  of  the  chief  merchants  who, 
quietly  and  without  letting  anybody  else  know  anything 
about  it,  should  be  so  favored  by  him  that  they  would  be 
willing  to  inform  him  at  once  of  anything  which  he  ought 
to  know  that  happened  either  in  the  city  government,  or 
even  in  private  homes.^ 

This  letter  is  chiefly  remarkable  for  what  it  leaves  out. 
It  is  the  letter  of  a  clever  politician  and  not  of  a  statesman. 
Catherine  wants  her  son  to  be  careful  to  keep  the  distribu- 

'■  B.  N.  Dupuy,  525  f.  47,  C.  C.  C.  390  f.  219,  A.  N.  K.  1500. 
•Letts.  II,  90. 


294  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

tion  of  the  patronage  in  his  own  hands,  and  to  take  meas- 
ures to  hear  of  everything  that  is  going  on  all  over  the 
kingdom  without  letting  it  be  known  that  he  was  doing  so. 
But  while  this  letter  to  her  son  on  the  art  of  reigning  made 
no  allusion  to  the  grave  problems  which  lay  before  him,  the 
need  of  economy  in  administration,  the  reform  of  the  ruined 
finances,  the  reform  of  the  universities,  the  reform  of  justice, 
the  establishment  of  a  strong  police,  the  decrease  of  hatred 
and  factional  spirit  and  the  very  delicate  and  complicated 
problems  of  foreign  policy,  it  is  evident  by  her  action  that  so 
far  as  the  problems  of  foreign  politics  we'^e  concerned,  Cath- 
erine was  not  unaware  of  their  existence.  She  attempted 
to  meet  them  in  a  way  so  characteristic,  that  it  is  worth 
while  to  examine  her  action  somewhat  in  detail  as  a  typical 
instance  of  the  spirit  and  method  of  her  statecraft;  though 
it  is  tiresome  because  of  her  habitual  tendency  to  see  in 
every  international  situation  nothing  quite  as  important  as 
its  potential  relation  to  good  marriages  for  her  children. 

The  most  pressing  problem  of  foreign  policy  was  the  rela- 
tion between  France  and  England.  Both  of  the  women 
who  presided  over  the  destiny  of  those  countries  were  too 
shrewd  to  push  the  war  very  energetically.  Each  under- 
stood entirely  the  truth  of  what  the  English  envoy  wrote 
home  after  he  had  had  a  talk  with  the  Ambassador  of 
Spain.  The  Spanish  "would  fain  have  the  English  and 
French  together  by  the  ears  and  they  do  as  children  do  when 
they  see  two  dogs  rend  each  other's  coats  with  their  teeth ; 
clap  their  hands  and  say  'Here,  take  him!  That's  a  good 
dog!'  Let  him  not  go  so;  so  should  his  master  have  sport 
whosoever  had  the  worst."  ^ 

Catherine  had  also  a  special  and  very  much  more  per- 
sonal reason  for  not  desiring  to  fight  Elizabeth,  or  even 
weaken  her.  From  two  letters  sent  in  the  same  packet,  one 
to  her  daughter,  the  Queen  of  Spain,  and  the  other  to  the 
Ambassador  in  Madrid,  it  appears  that  Catherine  had  got 
possession  of  a  letter  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  was 

*Cal.  F.  1563,  p.  342. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    295 

absent  in  the  French  delegation  at  the  Council  of  Trent  but 
"anxious  to  get  back  in  one  way  or  another  to  control  the 
affairs  of  the  kingdom."  This  intercepted  letter  made  her 
able  to  understand  entirely  "the  prettiest  trick  ever  seen." 
He  had  talked  to  her  in  the  beginning  about  marrying  her 
daughter-in-law,  the  Queen  of  Scots,  to  the  Archduke 
Charles,  third  son  of  the  Emperor  of  Germany.  She  had 
shown  no  sign  of  objection,  though  she  wanted  him  for  her 
own  daughter,  Margaret.  Lorraine  again  sent  word  that 
the  ambassador  of  the  King  of  Spain  and  the  Constable  had 
talked  to  him  of  marrying  the  Prince  of  Spain  to  the  Queen 
of  Scots  and  urged  him  to  use  his  influence  to  bring  it  about. 
He  commented  on  this  offer  that  it  was  not  his  plan ;  that  he 
preferred  the  marriage  of  Mary  to  the  Archduke.  "His 
brother,  the  Cardinal  of  Guise  here,  even  offered  to  go  to 
Scotland  to  persuade  his  niece  not  to  accept  the  offer  of  the 
Prince  of  Spain,  although  he  thought  it  would  be  diflScult 
because  being  proud  she  would  not  desire,  as  the  widow  of 
the  King  of  France,  to  marry  a  less  important  prince." 

All  the  while  Catherine  knew,  in  a  roundabout  way  by  a 
third  person,  that  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was  doing  all 
that  he  could  in  Spain  to  promote  this  marriage  and  that 
the  suggestion  of  it  had  come  from  him.  She  also  knew  that 
the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was  secretly  trying  to  get  the 
Spanish  prelates  at  the  council  to  join  in  an  attempt  to 
declare  the  Queen  of  England  incapable  of  wearing  the 
crown,  because  she  had  left  the  Church.  His  object  was  to 
transfer  the  kingdom  of  England  to  the  Queen  of  Scots  in 
order  to  make  her  a  more  attractive  match  for  the  Spanish 
prince.  He  had  also  tried  to  have  the  King  of  Navarre 
declared  a  heretic  by  the  Pope  and  his  kingdom  transferred 
to  Spain. 

"Unaware  that  I  knew  these  facts,  they  proposed  to  me  by 
a  third  person,  that  I  should  prevent  this  Spanish  marriage  which 
was  being  urged  upK>n  the  Queen  of  Scots,  by  offering  to  marry 
her  to  one  of  my  sons,  from  which  you  can  easily  see  that  he 
wants  to  hold  three  cards  in  his  hand.  .  .  .  This  same  person 


296  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

told  me  that  the  Queen  of  Scots  had  a  good  chance  of  getting 
the  kingdom  of  England,  since  the  Council  of  Trent  will  declare 
the  Queen  of  England  a  heretic  and  incapable  of  ruling.  It 
won't  trouble  her  very  much  if  there's  nothing  else  but  words 
to  handle.  So,  remembering  how  much  that  vain  hope  of  see- 
ing their  niece  one  day  the  Queen  of  England  has  already 
cost  this  kingdom,  I  pretended  that  I  wanted  to  agree  to  the 
bargain  suggested  by  my  son-in-law  (the  King  of  Spain)  and 
since  he  wanted  the  Queen  of  Scots  for  his  son,  that  I  should 
hope  that  God  would  give  somebody  else  to  my  son,  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  because  he  was  the  one  who  had  been  named  as 
the  probable  husband  for  the  Queen  of  Scots." 

She  went  on  to  say  that  both  the  Ambassador  and  her 
daughter,  the  Queen  of  Spain,  ought  to  move  with  the 
utmost  cleverness  and  secrecy  to  block  these  plans  without 
letting  anyone  know  that  they  had  any  word  from  France 
about  them.  She  explains  that  what  she  really  wants  is  to 
marry  the  king  to  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Emperor  and 
her  younger  son  to  the  Princess  of  Spain  and  that  the  two 
kingdoms  of  France  and  Spain  should  then  together  make  a 
kingdom  for  him.^ 

Here  was  a  plot  to  block  Catherine's  plan  for  the  mar- 
riage of  her  children  which  always  occupied  the  chief  place 
in  her  thoughts,  to  give  another  and  greater  crown  to  the 
Queen  of  Scots,  whom  she  disliked,  to  increase  enormously 
the  power  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  whom  she  hated  and 
feared.  To  have  Elizabeth  strong  and  friendly  to  her 
was  one  of  the  best  ways  to  prevent  the  success  of  any 
such  plot.  The  strongest  personal  reasons,  as  well  as  her 
general  dislike  of  war,  urged  Catherine  towards  peace  with 
England. 

Although  both  Queens  were  determined  to  have  no  more 
war,  it  took  a  long  time  to  make  peace.  Elizabeth  made  an 
uncompromising  demand  for  the  restoration  of  Calais  and  a 
large  sum  of  money.  France  threatened  to  break  off  negoti- 
ations, whereupon  Elizabeth  demanded  a  reaffirmation  of 
the  Treaty  of  Cateau-Cambresis,  by  which  Calais  was  to  be 

'Letts.  X,  111. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGLAND  AND  SPAIN    297 

restored  in  1567.  France  threatened  to  resume  the  war, 
unless  the  hostages  given  for  the  ratification  of  the  fulfill- 
ment of  that  treaty  were  returned,  claiming  that  Elizabeth 
had  violated  all  her  rights  under  it  by  attacking  France. 
Then  the  envoy  said,  "Give  us  five  hundred  thousand 
crowns  and  say  nothing  about  Calais  one  way  or  the  other." 
France  refused  but  offered  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
crowns  and  the  best  diamond  among  the  crown  jewels  for 
the  immediate  release  of  the  French  hostages.  The  nego- 
tiations were  not  made  any  smoother  by  the  fact  that  the 
English  Ambassador  and  the  English  Envoy  had  a  furious 
quarrel  with  each  other.  Finally  one  day  the  Ambassador 
called  the  Envoy  "arrant  knave,  traitor  and  such  other 
names  as  came  into  his  mind  out  of  his  good  store  and  drew 
his  dagger.  I  drew  my  dagger  also.  Mr.  Somers  stepped 
between  us,  but  as  he  pressed  with  his  dagger  to  come  near 
me,  I  bade  him  stand  back  and  not  come  nearer  to  me,  or  I 
would  cause  him  to  stand  back,  and  give  him  such  a  mark 
as  his  bedlam  furious  head  did  deserve."  ^ 

Elizabeth  drove  the  thriftiest  bargain  possible.  She 
first  bade  her  agents  come  down  to  four  hundred  thousand 
crowns,  and,  if  the  French  stood  on  that,  she  bade  them 
"use  all  the  means  they  can  to  make  the  said  sum  at  least 
three  hundred  thousand  crowns."  In  case  of  failure  they 
were  not  to  break  off  the  colloquy,  but  to  talk  about  other 
things.  "And  yet  afterwards  to  do  their  uttermost  to  make 
the  sum  no  less  than  two  hundred  thousand  crowns."  But 
Catherine  was  as  good  a  bargainer  as  Elizabeth  and  the 
money  payments  which  finally  accompanied  the  treaty  were 
sixty  thousand  crowns  down  and  sixty  thousand  later. 
There  was  no  definite  settlement  about  Calais  but  the 
rights  of  both  sides  were  reserved. 

One  important  article  in  the  treaty  established  liberty 
of  commerce  between  the  two  nations,  cancelling  a  large 
number  of  the  fees  and  exactions  which  were  imposed  in 
both  kingdoms  upon  merchants,  and  this  commercial  treaty 

'  Cal.  F.  1564,  p.  104. 


298  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

between  France  and  England  did  a  great  deal  to  build  up 
the  trade  between  the  two  countries.  Whether  this  para- 
graph came  from  Catherine  or  from  the  Chancellor  or  from 
somebody  else,  we  do  not  know.^ 

Philip  II  was  not  very  well  pleased  with  the  fact  that 
Catherine  had  made  peace  with  England  and  with  her 
rebels.  Apparently  yielding  to  her  solicitation,  he  had 
withdrawn  his  ambassador  and  replaced  him  by  another, 
who  was  more  agreeable  to  her,  but  not  with  the  idea  of 
stopping  his  protests  against  her  policy  of  conciliation.  On 
the  contrary,  he  rather  hoped  his  protests  would  be  more 
effective  coming  from  the  lips  of  a  man  she  did  not  dislike 
so  much.  He  ordered  the  new  Ambassador  Alava  "not  to 
fail  to  frighten  her  and  to  repeat  to  her  again  and  again 
that  if  she  does  not  govern  differently  it  will  make  me  very 
much  displeased,  obliged  as  I  am  to  take  in  hand  the  inter- 
ests of  the  King,  my  brother.  But  before  acting  in  this 
direction,  wait  until  Chantonnay  is  gone,  for  the  hatred 
which  the  Queen  has  for  him  would  spoil  everything." 
Alava  carried  out  his  directions  by  suggesting  to  Catherine 
that  she  was  in  great  danger  from  the  Prince  of  Conde, 
"for  the  King,  my  master,  is  afraid  that  his  objects  are  clear 
enough  and  in  the  end  he  and  his  party  will  not  find  any 
other  remedy  for  the  dangerous  situation  except  killing  you 
and  your  son."  She  seemed  much  disturbed  and  in  leaving 
said  to  him,  "Tell  the  Constable  this  as  plainly  as  you  have 
told  it  to  me."  It  is,  however,  doubtful  whether  Catherine 
was  as  much  troubled  by  this  sort  of  talk  as  the  Ambassador 
believed.  She  always  showed  courage  in  the  face  of  any 
physical  danger  and  she  was  not  to  be  frightened  by  loose 
talk  of  assassination.  The  fear  she  had  always  had  in  the 
back  of  her  mind  was  the  one  she  had  already  expressed  to 
her  Ambassador  at  Madrid.  She  was  not  the  only  one  who 
was  touched  by  this  dread.  There  was  in  France  "an  opin- 
ion and  firm  belief  that  the  King  of  Spain  wants  to  make 
himself  King  of  France  under  the  pretense  of  defending  the 

*Dumont,  V,  1,  p.  126. 


PEACE  AND  POLITICS— ENGT  AND  AND  SPAIN    299 

Roman  Catholic  religion  with  the  aid  of  the  house  of 
Guise."  This  was  only  part  of  an  increasing  opinion,  widely 
spread  throughout  all  Europe,  that  the  Spaniards  "want  to 
give  law  to  the  entire  world."  ^ 

'A.  N.  K.  ctd.  Letts.  II,  148,  n.;  A.  N.  K.  1501  f.  74;  Granvelle  (2) 
VII,  23;  B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  395  f.  119.  The  phrase  was  common,  e.g.  Eng. 
Amb.  1723  f.  43. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

Catherine's  plans  for  France  and  Christendom 

It  was  evident  to  Catherine  that  her  danger  from  the 
overmastering  power  of  Spain  was  closely  connected  with 
the  internal  difiBculties  of  her  son's  kingdom  and  she  began 
to  feel  certain  that  the  best  way  to  meet  both  external 
and  internal  dangers  was  to  have  an  interview  with  her 
two  most  powerful  neighbors,  the  King  of  Spain  and  the 
Emperor  of  Germany.  The  idea  of  such  an  interview  had 
been  originally  suggested  by  the  Pope  in  the  end  of  the  year 
1563  with  the  object  undoubtedly  of  forming  a  league  for 
the  extermination  of  heresy;  although  its  ostensible  object 
would  probably  have  been  resistance  to  the  Turk.  Cath- 
erine, however,  had  very  different  views  about  the  desirable 
outcome  of  such  a  meeting.  The  eldest  son  of  the  Emperor, 
who  had  been  elected  King  of  the  Romans  or  successor  to 
the  Emperor,  had  shown  himself  very  favorable  to  efforts 
looking  toward  a  reunion  of  the  entire  Church.  Catherine 
told  her  ambassador  to  say  to  him  that  her  object  in  holding 
this  interview  was  "to  see  if  we,  who  are  the  greatest  and 
most  powerful  Christian  princes,  can  agree  upon  some 
means  other  than  arms  for  the  pacification  and  repose  of 
Christianity.  Knowing  that  his  desire  and  mine  agree  in 
that  point,  I  hope  something  can  be  done  in  accordance 
with  our  desires.  Even  though  the  Pope  and  the  King  of 
Spain  show  themselves  to  be  very  difficult,  we  can  work  to 
persuade  them  to  come  to  this  conclusion."  ^ 

But  the  King  of  Spain  said  he  was  afraid  of  exciting  the 
suspicions  of  Protestant  Princes  and  provoking  a  general 
war  about  religion.  He  bluntly  refused  to  come  to  any  such 
meeting.     Catherine  therefore  wrote  to  the  King  of  the 

*  Letts.  II,  no,  111. 

300 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  FRANCE  301 

Romans  asking  him  to  meet  her  secretly  even  though  the 
King  of  Spain  refused  and  spoke  plainly  to  him  of  what,  in 
this  case  as  in  all  other  phases  of  her  foreign  policy,  was 
nearly  always  the  central  motive  in  her  mind, — the  mar- 
riages of  her  children.  But  in  the  beginning  of  the  summer 
of  1564  the  Emperor  and  his  son,  who  at  first  seemed  very 
anxious  for  the  interview,  suddenly  dropped  the  subject  so 
decidedly  that  Catherine  felt  obliged  to  dismiss  it.^ 

Large  sections  of  the  kingdom  continued  to  be  much 
disturbed  by  the  zeal  or  the  hatred  of  people  who  did  not 
in  their  hearts  accept  the  peace  and  would  not  obey  the 
royal  Edict  of  Pacification.  The  focus  of  trouble  was 
in  the  south,  where  Philip  II  had  become  mixed  in  very 
serious  plots  with  Blaise  de  Monluc,  Lieutenant-Governor 
of  Guienne.  Before  the  fall  of  Havre  de  Grace,  Monluc  had 
complained  to  Catherine  of  the  pernicious  activity  of  that 
strong  Huguenot,  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  who  was  undoubt- 
edly infringing  upon  the  Edict.  He  had  warned  her  that 
"if  she  stands  this  from  the  Queen  of  Navarre  she  will  make 
evident  to  the  King  of  Spain  that  she  cares  more  for  the 
friendship  of  the  Queen  than  for  his  friendship."  Cath- 
erine, though  ordering  Monluc  to  make  the  Queen  of  Na- 
varre keep  within  the  Edict,  refused  to  take  against  her 
the  severe  action  he  advised.  Somebody,  probably  Philip 
II,  then  procured  from  the  Pope  a  citation  to  the  Queen  of 
Navarre  to  appear  in  Rome  to  answer  a  charge  of  heresy, 
on  pain  of  being  deprived  of  her  kingdom  if  she  did  not 
obey.  Catherine  at  once  took  up  her  cause.  In  a  letter 
from  the  King,  she  denounced  this  citation  as  illegal  and 
injurious  to  him  and  begged  the  Pope  to  revoke  it  at  once. 
She  also  told  her  ambassador  to  tell  the  Pope  that  he  had 
no  authority  or  jurisdiction  over  those  who  bear  the  title  of 
King  or  Queen  and  that  she  would  not  protect  her  son's 
relatives  and  vassals.^ 

No  action  was  ever  taken  on  the  citation,  but  a  plot  was 

'■  Letts.  II,  157,  182,  187. 

'Monluc,  IV,  246;  Conde,  II,  119;  IV,  680;  V,  669. 


302  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

formed  in  France  to  kidnap  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  carry  her 
across  the  mountains  into  Spain  and  present  her  before  the 
Inquisition.  The  plot  was  discovered  through  the  em- 
broiderer of  the  Queen  of  Spain,  who  told  the  French 
Ambassador  what  she  had  heard.  The  Ambassador  sent 
his  secretary  to  warn  the  Queen  Mother  and  such 
measures  were  taken  that  the  plot  was  blocked.  Monluc 
wrote  in  his  commentaries  a  denial  of  the  fact  that 
he  was  engaged  in  this  conspiracy ;  but  he  also  denied  that 
he  had  any  questionable  relations  with  the  King  of  Spain, 
which  is  not  true.  He  acted  as  a  spy  for  Philip  and  received 
a  pension  from  him.  That  was  no  more  than  was  done  by 
many  others,  even  in  the  royal  council  of  France  and  of 
England,  but  certain  tilings  we  know  about  his  conduct  are 
more  ominous.  A  royal  messenger  was  directed  to  ask 
him  what  forces  and  cities  could  be  put  into  Spain's  hands 
if  they  decided  to  invade,  and  whether  there  was  any  way 
of  "getting  hold  of  the  person  of  the  King  in  order  to  carry 
on  the  whole  business  with  his  authority  and  under  his 
name."  We  do  not  know  Monluc's  answers  to  these  ques- 
tions, but,  after  he  had  been  asked  them,  he  remained  on 
very  friendly  terms  with  the  King  of  Spain,  and  his  conduct 
was  worse  than  shady.  It  is  entirely  characteristic  of  the 
dissimulation  which  was  typical  of  the  times  that  Catherine 
accepted  Monluc's  excuses  although  she  knew  they  were 
suspicious,  that  Philip  pretended  to  resent  the  citation  of 
the  Queen  of  Navarre  to  Rome,  and  that  the  Queen  of 
Navarre,  although  perfectly  well  aware  of  the  plot  to  carry 
her  to  Spain  for  the  stake  or  the  dungeon,  sent  a  special 
messenger  to  thank  Philip  for  his  protests  against  her  cita- 
tion for  heresy.^ 

Almost  immediately  after  this  shock  to  her  already  weak 
confidence  in  Philip,  Catherine  returned  to  the  plan  of  an  in- 
terview with  him  on  the  border  of  the  two  countries.  The 
new  Spanish  Ambassador  had  a  long  talk  with  her  about 

^ Cable  (1),  182,  246;  de  Thou,  III,  497  (He  knew  the  embroiderer's 
children);  A.  N.  K.  ctd.  Fomeron,  I,  297;  Marcks  HI;  B.  N.  Dupuy,  523 
f.  H;  Courteault  (2),  488. 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  PRANCE  303 

it  in  the  middle  of  tiie  winter  of  1564.  She  said,  "It's  evi- 
dent that  the  King  of  Spain  doesn't  care  about  seeing  me." 
He  repUed,  "That  depends  on  you,  Madame,  for  you  won't 
let  him  know  what  you  want  to  talk  about  at  this  meeting." 
He  added  that  the  meeting  would  probably  create  great 
suspicion,  and  wanted  to  know  what  good  could  be  expected 
from  it  to  balance  that  suspicion.  The  Queen  replied  iron- 
ically, "You  seem  to  think,  Monsieur  Ambassador,  that  the 
earth  will  tremble  as  soon  as  we  meet."  "Well,"  he  an- 
swered, "it  isn't  possible  to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the  dangers 
attending  such  an  interview."  Interrupting  him  she  said, 
"The  affairs  of  religion  might  be  arranged  if  we  could  only 
meet"  and  she  promised  to  do  all  in  her  power  to  bring 
them  to  a  proper  situation  little  by  little.  "Little  by  little!" 
cried  the  ambassador,  "But  that's  just  exactly  what  the 
King  doesn't  want."  ^ 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that,  during  all  these  trying 
months  since  the  close  of  the  active  operations  of  the  Eng- 
lish war,  Catherine's  thoughts  and  energies  were  entirely 
absorbed  in  the  dangers  of  the  state  or  the  pleasures  of 
statescraft.  She  shared  to  the  full  that  love  of  elaborate 
ceremony,  splendid  costumes  and  magnificent  furniture 
which  was  so  characteristic  of  most  of  the  rulers  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  The  treasury  was  never  so  empty  that 
Catherine  did  not  feel  able  to  spend  money  lavishly  for 
articles  of  luxury  or  of  art.  The  English  war  was  scarcely 
ended  by  the  Treaty  of  Troyes,  when  she  bought  a  number 
of  enormous  emeralds  for  a  girdle  and  of  smaller  and  finer 
emeralds  for  a  necklace,  to  present  to  her  daughter,  the 
Duchess  of  Lorraine.  She  bought  most  of  these  stones 
from  the  Rhinegrave,  who  had  been  in  command  of  the 
royal  German  mercenaries  during  the  war  with  the  Hugue- 
nots. A  sardonic  touch  is  added  to  the  gift  by  the  fact  that 
the  Spanish  Ambassador  wrote  to  his  master  that  he  had 
heard  the  Rhinegrave  say  to  the  Count  of  Mansfeld  (later 
commander  of  the  German  mercenaries  of  the  Huguenot 

*A.  N.  K.  1501  (42). 


304  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

army)  that  he  had  got  these  emeralds  from  churches  during 
the  war.  Catherine  must  have  known  that  the  jewels  were 
loot  and  she  had  to  shut  her  eyes  not  to  see  that  many  of 
them  must  have  been  either  stolen  directly  from  the  ortho- 
dox churches,  or  bought  from  those  who  had  stolen  them, 
by  one  of  the  commanders  hired  by  the  King  to  protect  the 
Church.  Certainly  she  knew  perfectly  well  the  danger  of 
ecclesiastical  peculation  in  war  time,  because  writing  of  the 
permission  given  to  the  churches  of  lower  Normandy  to 
raise  a  force  of  harquebusiers  by  selling  their  altar  orna- 
ments, she  said,  "Care  ought  to  be  taken  lest  the  clergy  to 
get  one  crown  to  pay  the  troops,  sell  a  far  greater  value  of 
plate  and  jewels  to  put  the  money  in  their  pockets."  ^ 

There  were  many  instances  of  thus  "stripping  the  altars 
of  God  to  clothe  the  ladies  of  the  court"  and  if  among  the 
defenders  of  Catholicism  men  were  thus  openly  allowed  to 
make  profit  out  of  sacrilege,  it  was  easy  for  Huguenot  cap- 
tains of  guerilla  war  to  persuade  themselves  that  plunder  of 
the  apparatus  of  the  mass  (which  they  thought  idolatrous) 
was  almost  a  religious  duty.  A  list  of  the  booty  ^  of  the 
famous  Huguenot  partisan  nicknamed  The  Devil  of  Bres- 
sault,  made  in  the  cathedral  of  Le  Mans,  contains  ninety- 
two  splendid  garments,  a  tunic  of  cloth  of  gold  over  crimson 
velvet,  chasubles,  violet  velvet  over  cloth  of  gold,  of  black, 
green  and  red  velvet,  of  green,  white  and  red  embroidered 
damask,  capes  of  crimson,  embroidered  black  or  white 
damask,  etc.  Many  of  these  splendid  fabrics  found  their 
way  into  costumes  as  the  stolen  emeralds  found  their  way 
to  the  neck  of  Catherine's  oldest  daughter. 

The  most  persistent  of  Catherine's  extravagant  tastes 
was  building.  In  the  beginning  of  the  year  1564,  the  very 
worst  time  of  all  these  troubles,  Catherine,  not  content  with 
the  nine  magnificent  chateaux  and  palaces  built  a  short 
time  before  by  Francis  I,  demolished  the  palace  of  Les 
Tournelles,  laid  out  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine  a  magnificent 

*A.  N.  K.  1501  f.  74;  Letts.  I,  316. 
'Joubert  App.  2, 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  FRANCE  305 

garden  and  began  the  construction  of  the  palace  of  the 
Tuileries  which  was  to  be  joined  to  the  royal  castle  of  the 
Louvre  by  a  splendid  gallery.  In  forming  these  plans 
Catherine  was  influenced,  not  only  by  that  love  of  building 
which  had  been  so  marked  among  the  members  of  her  own 
family  and  the  members  of  the  family  into  which  she  had 
married,  but  probably  also  by  her  affection  for  her  husband. 
The  palace  she  demolished  had  been  the  palace  in  which  he 
died;  the  palace  to  which  she  began  the  adjunct  and  com- 
panion had  been  enlarged  and  adorned  with  splendid  win- 
dows and  halls  by  him.  The  outside  of  it  was  ornamented 
with  those  interlaced  C's  and  H's  which  formed  the  official 
monogram  of  the  King  and  his  wife.  She  had  continued  the 
plan  of  her  husband  to  complete  the  great  quadrangle  ac- 
cording to  the  design  of  the  architect  Pierre  Lescot  who  had 
worked  upon  the  building  under  her  father-in-law  and  her 
husband.  Catherine  now  wished,  not  only  to  continue  the 
work  of  her  husband,  but  to  build  on  a  very  magnificent 
scale  a  new  palace  alongside  of  the  Louvre.  She  was 
granted  a  hundred  thousand  livres  from  the  state  treasury 
to  begin  it  and  not  long  afterwards  a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  more.  The  garden  which  was  a  part  of  this  plan, 
Catherine  finished  in  about  six  years.  But  some  seven  or 
eight  years  after  she  began  the  palace,  she  stopped  work  on 
the  building,  perhaps  because  she  was  alarmed  by  certain 
predictions  of  the  astrologers  in  connection  with  it.  How 
far  she  actually  built  on  the  plans  before  she  stopped  we 
cannot  be  quite  certain.  We  know  that  from  time  to  time 
she  had  fine  marbles  sent  from  different  places  to  use  in  the 
building.  It  was  because  she  had  stopped  work  on  the 
Tuileries  years  before  that,  at  her  death,  there  were  in  the 
gardens  five  splendid  marble  columns  and  a  quantity  of 
marbles  cut  and  in  block  of  a  variety  of  colors,  red,  black, 
green  and  red,  white  and  black,  grey-white,  red  and  gray, 
white  blotched  with  yellow,  white  and  red,  etc.,  etc.^ 

^Battifol  111.  Lenormant  qtd.  Topographie,  228,  see  Note.  Du 
Cerceau  ctd.  Berty,  I,  249;  Berty,  II,  8;  I,  258,  e.g.  Letts.  II,  264;  III,  1. 
BonnaSe,  213. 


306  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Balked  in  her  attempt  to  secure  the  promise  of  an  mter- 
view  with  Philip  and  her  daughter,  Catherine  turned  to 
another  plan.  She  determined  to  take  the  King  on  a  circu- 
lar journey  through  the  provinces  of  France,  hoping  that 
during  the  course  of  it  she  would  be  able  to  persuade  her 
son-in-law  to  meet  her  on  the  southern  border.  Even  if 
she  could  not  do  this,  she  hoped  that  the  visit  of  the  King 
would  pacify  many  local  troubles. 

But  before  she  started  Catherine  thought  it  good  policy 
to  rally  a  large  part  of  the  nobility  around  the  Court  and 
she  did  this  by  indulging  her  taste  for  splendor  in  a  mag- 
nificent series  of  fetes  at  Fontainebleau.  The  Constable 
opened  the  series  by  a  great  supper.  The  next  day  the 
Cardinal  of  Bourbon  gave  another  great  supper.  Two  days 
later  the  Queen  entertained  at  dinner,  followed  by  a  comedy 
played  in  the  great  ballroom  of  the  chateau.  The  King's 
younger  brother  then  gave  a  dinner  followed  by  a  tourna- 
ment where  twelve  gentlemen  fought  on  foot  with  javelins 
and  swords.  Then  the  King  followed  with  a  great  fete  and 
masked  tournament  in  which  a  castle,  defended  by  devils 
commanded  by  giants,  was  assaulted  by  the  four  marshals 
of  France  on  horseback,  leading  a  troop  made  up  of  the 
young  gentlemen  of  the  court.  Many  lances  were  broken 
and  armor  rang  with  the  blows  of  the  sword,  but  the  death 
of  Henry  II  seems  to  have  had  a  permanent  effect  in 
repressing  the  roughness  of  the  game  of  the  tournament 
as  played  in  the  court  of  France.  A  feature  of  these  splen- 
did festivals  of  Catherine  was  the  brilliant  body  of  her 
young  women-in-waiting,  usually  from  the  noble  families 
of  France,  though  some  were  Italian  and  at  least  one  was 
Greek.  All  were,  if  we  can  believe  the  somewhat  dithy- 
rambic  statements  of  that  veteran  gallant,  Brantome,  beau- 
tiful. He  gives  a  list  of  sixty  young  unmarried  women 
whom  he  remembers  at  the  court  of  Catherine.  The 
pleasure  of  the  old  man's  recollection  is  so  intense  as  to  be 
almost  pathetic,  when  he  paints  the  brilliant  spectacle  of 
the  Queen  riding  abroad  followed  by  forty  or  fifty  of  these 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  FRANCE  307 

women,  mounted  on  beautiful  hackneys  richly  caparisoned, 
wiiich  they  sat  with  the  utmost  grace,  "the  plumes  of  their 
hats  floating  in  the  air  with  a  provoking  challenge  as  if  to 
war  or  love."  ^ 

In  connection  with  the  brilliant  band  an  accusation  has 
been  brought  against  Catherine  of  a  certain  devilish  pic- 
turesqueness  which  has  caused  it  to  be  accepted,  without 
much  examination,  as  a  part  of  the  popular  conception  of 
her  life.  It  is,  however,  an  accusation  for  which  it  is  easier 
to  find  support  among  her  enemies  than  in  unprejudiced 
testimony  from  her  contemporaries.  It  is  hardly  wise  to 
give  over  much  weight  to  the  leering  anecdotes  of  Bran  tome, 
an  old  debauchee  with  a  corrupted  memory,  or  the  putrid 
satires  collected  by  a  moralist  like  de  I'Estoile,  who  is  too 
much  inclined  to  roll  the  evils  he  records  like  a  sweet  morsel 
under  his  tongue.  The  opinion  of  Calvin,  expressed  in  a 
letter  of  the  spring  of  1561,  that  Navarre  was  "entirely  given 
over  to  Venus"  and  the  Queen  Mother  "trained  in  those 
arts,"  was  exciting  his  passion  by  means  of  "her  seraglio,"  is 
more  worthy  of  attention,  though  it  refers  to  only  one  in- 
stance and  is  highly  prejudiced  against  Catherine.  The 
similar  opinion  of  the  Spanish  Ambassador  that  Catherine 
was  deliberately  using  one  of  her  maids-in-waiting  to  worm 
secrets  from  the  King  of  Navarre  and  separate  him  from 
the  party  of  the  Catholics  must  be  weighed  against  his 
other  statement,  entirely  false,  that  the  Huguenots  habitu- 
ally used  beautiful  young  women  to  draw  young  noblemen 
to  heresy.  Later  in  life  Sully  recorded  in  his  memoirs 
his  belief  that  Catherine  had  deliberately  used  her  maids- 
of-honor,  without  regard  to  the  consequences  to  them,  in 
order  to  seduce  her  opponents.  But  on  the  whole  it  is 
very  astonishing  to  find  how  little  direct  evidence  there  is 
to  support  the  accusation  which  has  been  repeated  by 
historians  of  every  generation  from  the  time  of  Catherine's 
death  until  now.    We  know  that  at  least  four  of  Catherine's 

*  Jouan.  Castelnau,  Bk.  V,  Ch.  6;  Letts.  X,  gives  list  of  280  court  ladies. 
Brant.,  VII,  399. 


308  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

maids-of-honor  bore  children  to  great  lords  of  the  realm, 
but  one  of  these  liaisons  was  distinctly  contrary  to  her 
political  interests  and  it  is  not  at  all  certain  that  she  knew 
of  the  beginnings  of  the  others;  still  less  that  she  encour- 
aged them.  That  adultery  was  more  or  less  common  at  the 
French  court  after  the  reigns  of  two  kings  who  had  set  such 
examples  as  Francis  I  and  Henry  II,  is  highly  probable  and 
attested  by  contemporary  opinion.  Montaigne,  who  does 
not  conceal  his  own  licentiousness,  expresses  a  very  strong 
judgment  on  the  growing  licentiousness  of  his  generation. 
There  is  not  the  smallest  reason  to  believe  that  Catherine, 
although  her  own  conduct  in  that  respect  is  irreproachable, 
would  have  cared  to  make  any  strong  stand  against  a 
depraved  moral  atmosphere,  nor  would  her  conscience  have 
been  in  the  least  troubled  by  taking  any  profit  that  might 
come  to  her  plans  from  it.  But  the  charge  that  she  de- 
liberately and  systematically  corrupted  the  morals  of  young 
people  around  her  in  order  to  make  them  the  tools  of  her 
politics,  can  be  dismissed  as  an  invention  of  her  enemies. 
She  dearly  loved  a  joke  and  one  of  the  commonest  phrases 
in  the  reports  of  ambassadors  is  "the  Queen  Mother  laughed 
heartily,"  but  there  is  no  record  of  any  double  entendre 
from  her  lips.  Indeed,  she  seems  to  have  been  a  pronounced 
foe  of  that  "filthy  jesting"  which  was  taken  for  granted  in 
Renascence  society.  The  poet  Baif  records  that,  when  she 
commissioned  him  to  translate  some  comedies  of  Terence 
to  be  played  at  court,  she  ordered  him  to  suppress  inde- 
cencies in  the  dialogue.  And  Brantome  remembered  that 
any  courtier  who  did  not  behave  with  the  most  extreme 
propriety  was  punished  by  prompt  exclusion  from  the 
soirees  in  Catherine's  apartments.^ 

The  best  way  of  suggesting  a  specimen  of  the  reasons 
for  this  somewhat  vague  judgment  in  regard  to  a  definite 
indictment  unsupported  by  definite  evidence,  is  to  be  found 
in  the  story  of  one  of  Catherine's  maids-in-waiting  whose 

*Baum,  App.  32;  Conde,  II,  43;  Sully,  20,  27,  28,  34,  35,  36,  58; 
Fremy  (1),  ctd.  90. 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  FRANCE     309 

dishonor  became  evident  about  this  time.  Isabelle  de 
Limeuil  was  a  very  distant  relative  of  Catherine's  mother, 
a  beautiful  blonde  with  blue  eyes,  a  high  complexion  and 
a  vivacious  wit/  of  whom  Ronsard  in  one  of  his  most 
graceful  poems  sang  that  he  would  like  to  give  her  as  many 
kisses  as  there  were  leaves  on  the  trees  of  the  forest. 
Robertet,  one  of  Catherine's  secretaries,  was  her  devoted 
admirer.  Soon  after  the  Peace  of  Amboise  the  Prince  of 
Conde  fell  a  victim  to  her  charms.  Some  of  his  friends  in 
vain  wrote  to  warn  him  of  the  danger  to  his  reputation  and 
authority,  but  Conde,  who  was  now  rather  openly  courted 
by  the  beautiful  and  enormously  wealthy  widow  of  the 
Marshal  Saint  Andre  (who  had  fallen  in  the  battle  of 
Dreux),  refused  their  advice  to  leave  court.  Two  months 
after  Catherine  began  her  journey  through  the  provinces, 
Isabelle  was  suddenly  seized  with  the  pains  of  childbirth 
in  the  midst  of  a  court  reception  and  gave  birth  to  a  son 
in  a  neighboring  room.  Whatever  Catherine's  attitude 
toward  moral  delinquency  may  have  been,  we  know  from 
her  letter  to  the  King  of  Navarre  already  cited,  from  the 
regulations  she  imposed  upon  the  life  of  her  court  and  her 
actions  in  a  previous  similar  case  among  her  maids-of-honor, 
that  any  conduct  that  openly  contravened  "les  convenances" 
would  receive  her  sternest  reprobation.  In  this  case,  her 
action  against  the  fragile  and  reckless  beauty  was  probably 
sharpened  by  the  fact  that  one  of  the  courtiers  now  accused 
Isabelle  of  having  a  short  time  before  tried  to  induce  him 
to  poison  the  Prince  of  La  Roche-sur-Yon  because  he  had 
insulted  her.  He  added  that  she  had  even  hinted  at 
poisoning  Catherine  herself.  Isabelle  was  at  once  carried 
off  and  confined  in  a  convent  at  Auxonne.  Her  lover,  the 
Queen's  secretary,  soon  discovered  where  she  was  and  found 
means  to  write  to  her  recalling  their  happiness  of  the  previ- 
ous year.  He  says  that  he  did  not  dare  to  come  to  see  her  for 
fear  of  the  anger  of  the  Queen  Mother  and  added  that  he 
was  also  afraid  of  the  jealousy  of  the  Prince  of  Conde.    He 

*  Brautdme. 


310  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

said  he  was  "willing  to  die  for  her  because  he  loved  her  more 
than  anything  else  in  the  world.  Bourdeille  and  Guitiniere 
[two  of  her  companions  in  the  Queen's  household]  send 
you  a  thousand  kisses.  Burn  this  letter:  you  know  why." 
The  imprisoned  girl  replied  that  she  could  not  "find  words 
to  tell  what  pleasure  his  letter  had  brought  her;  that  she 
did  nothing  all  day  long  except  think  of  him  because  nothing 
in  the  world  could  make  her  forget  to  love  him." 

Soon  after,  Conde,  who  was  kept  at  the  bedside  of  his 
wife,  dying  of  consumption,  found  means  to  write  to  her, 
saying  that  he  had  heard  of  her  through  Robertet.  He 
says  he  does  not  "believe  what  he  has  been  told  that  the 
child  was  not  really  his  and  that  it  is  a  beautiful  boy  whom 
he  is  having  brought  up  as  befits  a  young  prince."  He  sends 
her  a  rather  curious  proof  of  constant  affection  in  the  shape 
of  one  of  his  night-gowns  and  asks  her  to  continue  to  love 
him  faithfully;  reminding  her  at  the  same  time  that  he  is 
"accustomed  in  all  things  to  be  the  only  one  and  the  first 
one."  A  few  weeks  later  Conde's  wife  died  and  not  long 
after  Conde  wanted  to  marry  either  the  widow  of  the  Duke 
of  Guise  or  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  offering  to  change  his 
religion  or  do  whatever  else  was  necessary  to  make  the 
match  agreeable.  Apparently  they  were  playing  with  him 
to  break  up  the  Huguenot  party,  for,  in  the  end,  Conde 
was  furious  over  the  outcome  of  the  negotiation,  saying 
the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  had  cheated  him  with  hopes  of 
marriage  to  the  Queen  of  Scots.^ 

The  accusation  that  Isabelle  had  planned  to  use  poison 
was  not  taken  very  seriously  by  anyone  and  about  a  year 
after  her  arrest  Conde  had  one  of  his  gentlemen  arrange 
for  her  escape  from  confinement  and  transfer  to  the  mag- 
nificent chateau  of  Valery,  which  had  just  been  presented 
to  him  by  the  Marechale  de  St.  Andre.  The  Protestant 
ministers  sent  a  deputation  to  wait  upon  him  and  to  remon- 
strate with  regard  to  the  scandal,  but  he  dismissed  them 

^Labanoff,  I,  245,  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  ctd.  de  la  Ferriere  (2),  115  A.  N.  K. 
1503  f.  36. 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  FRANCE  311 

brusquely.  He  soon  got  tired  of  Isabelle  and  before  the 
end  of  the  year  he  yielded  to  the  suggestions  of  his  friends 
and  married  a  Huguenotte,  the  beautiful  daughter  of  the 
Marquis  of  RotheHn.  Catherine,  who  was  secretly  much 
relieved  that  the  proposed  alliance  between  Conde  and  the 
house  of  Guise  had  not  been  accomplished  in  any  of  the 
forms  in  which  it  had  been  suggested,  gave  her  consent  to 
the  marriage.  Not  long  after  Isabelle  married  Scipion 
Sardini,  an  Italian  banker  settled  in  France,  a  great 
favorite  of  Catherine,  who  had  become  enormously 
wealthy,  chiefly  through  his  dealings  with  the  Crown.  She 
presided  for  many  years  over  his  magnificent  hotel  in  Paris. 
Curiously  enough  her  younger  sister  married,  not  long  after, 
the  very  courtier  who  had  accused  Isabelle  of  a  desire  to 
distribute  poison  in  the  French  court.  In  such  an  atmos- 
phere the  evil  influence  of  woman's  beauty  did  not  need  to 
be  patronized  by  the  head  of  the  state.^ 

Catherine  took  a  certain  number  of  this  band  of  beau- 
ties with  her  on  the  long  royal  progress  through  France. 
In  explaining  the  objects  of  this  journey  she  naturally 
emphasized  different  things  to  different  people.  To  Admiral 
Coligny  she  wrote  in  April,  1564:  "Although  they  were 
sending  expressly  every  day  to  those  who  have  in  hand  the 
administration  of  justice,  it  must  be  confessed  that  the 
greater  part  of  them  have  not,  in  most  places,  paid  very 
much  attention  to  their  duty ;  which  is  the  reason  why  the 
King  undertakes  this  journey  in  order  to  make  everybody 
so  clearly  understand  his  intention  to  enforce  this  Edict 
(of  Pacification)  that  nobody  can  be  able  to  allege  any 
pretext  nor  occasion  to  break  it."  Archives  in  Switzerland 
contain  documentary  proofs  of  the  acceptance  by  Coligny 
and  his  brother  of  Catherine's  intention  to  maintain  the 
toleration  promised  by  the  Edict.  In  the  summer  of  1564 
the  epoch  for  the  renewal  of  the  alliance  between  the  crown 
of  France  and  the  cantons  of  the  Swiss  League  had  arrived 

^Cal.  F.  1565,  p.  331;  d'Aumale,  I,  219,  de  la  Ferriere  (2). 


312  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

and  French  envoys  were  sent  to  arrange  it.  The  council- 
lors of  the  Protestant  cantons  of  Berne,  Basle  and  Zurich 
refused  to  sign  the  alliance  unless  it  was  expressly  stipulated 
in  writing  that  a  failure  of  the  King  to  maintain  toleration 
would  leave  them  free  to  withdraw.  Coligny  and  d'Andelot 
wrote  strongly  urging  them  not  to  insist  on  this  which 
"would  do  more  harm  than  good."  Coligny  begged  them 
"in  the  name  of  God"  to  accept  the  verbal  assurances  of 
the  King  that  he  would  maintain  the  toleration  promised 
by  the  Edict.  The  matter  was  finally  settled  by  a  separate 
formal  acknowledgment  from  the  French  envoys  of  the 
declaration  of  the  council  of  Berne  that  they  were  not 
bound  by  the  alliance  if  "those  who  are  of  the  evangelic 
profession  of  faith  were  molested  or  persecuted  against  the 
Edict."  This  is  an  example  of  Catherine's  frequent  use 
during  the  four  and  a  half  years'  peace  which  followed  the 
Edict  of  Amboise,  of  the  advice  and  help  of  Coligny.^ 

Catherine  explained  the  motives  of  the  royal  journey 
to  the  King  of  Spain  in  terms  quite  different  from  those 
she  used  to  Coligny.  She  told  him  she  was  taking  the  King 
through  his  kingdom  because  she  had  heard  from  all  quar- 
ters that  the  Huguenots  were  spreading  the  report  that  she 
and  the  King  proposed  to  join  their  religion.  She  had 
therefore  determined  to  take  the  King  on  a  long  voyage 
through  his  kingdom  "to  prove  to  all  parts  of  the  kingdom 
that  she  and  her  children  were  faithful  to  their  religion. 
This  is  the  reason  why  wherever  she  has  gone  she  has 
always  heard  mass  in  the  most  solemn  and  public  manner." 
Whichever  of  these  intentions  was  uppermost  in  her  mind 
— and  Catherine  was  in  the  habit  of  working  for  two 
apparently  opposed  ends  simultaneously,  or  at  least  alter- 
nately— she  was  not  very  successful  in  securing  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  Edict  about  religion.  The  complaints  which 
had  been  so  common  before  she  started  continued  to  come 
in  from  both  sides.    The  Edict  was  in  many  places  openly 

*  Letts.  II,  1,  77;  Arch.  Zurich,  13  Aug.,  4  Nov.,  1564;  Arch.  Basle. 
Ft.  a.  2,  8,  31  Oct.,  1564,  Jan.  3,  1565. 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  FRANCE  313 

broken  and  not  enforced  by  the  magistrates.  Catherine 
promised  redress  for  outrages  and  ordered  the  severe  en- 
forcement of  the  law,  but  the  problem  was  a  very  difficult 
one  and  the  extreme  men  of  both  sides  were  unwilling  to 
keep  within  the  strict  terms  of  the  Edict  wherever  they  had 
the  power  to  encroach  upon  it.^ 

In  the  matter  of  proving  her  orthodoxy  Catherine  met 
with  more  success.  Besides  the  zeal  she  showed  everywhere 
in  attending  Roman  CathoHc  worship,  she  issued  an  order 
suspending  the  operations  of  the  Edict  in  any  place  where 
the  court  was.  When  the  Duchess  of  Ferrara  and  the 
Queen  of  Navarre  assumed  that  they  were  an  exception 
to  this  rule,  she  told  them  that,  if  they  had  preaching  in 
their  rooms  while  they  were  in  her  suite,  she  would  hang 
the  preachers  if  she  could  lay  her  hands  on  them.  In 
August,  1564,  she  issued  the  Edict  of  Roussillon  as  a  supple- 
mentary explanation  of  the  Edict  of  Amboise.  It  explained 
that  the  right  to  worship  in  their  chateaux  given  to  gentle- 
men was  meant  to  apply  only  to  their  vassals  and  their 
households.  The  churches  were  forbidden  to  hold  synods 
or  to  raise  a  general  fund.  Monks  and  nuns  who  had 
married  during  the  war  were  ordered  to  put  away  their 
husbands  or  wives  or  to  leave  the  kingdom  within  two 
months,  on  the  pain  of  the  gallows  for  the  men  and  per- 
petual imprisonment  for  the  women.  A  little  later  the 
royal  council  ordered  that  no  man  of  the  new  religion 
should  be  appointed  a  judge  and  the  Queen  told  the 
Nuncio  they  had  wanted  to  apply  the  same  rule  to  all  the 
offices  of  the  kingdom,  "but  it  had  been  thought  by  the 
King  that  this  might  cause  the  Huguenots  to  revolt." 
The  Prince  of  Conde  immediately  sent  to  Catherine  letters 
of  formal  protest.  Catherine,  after  glancing  through  them 
and  recognizing  their  ability,  said  with  a  smile  to  the 
messenger,  "Where  was  the  Admiral  when  these  letters  of 
the  Prince  of  Conde  were  written?"    But  this  policy  of 

*  Monluc,  V,  24. 


314  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

impressing  Spain  by  a  public  demonstration  of  zeal  for 
orthodoxy  gained  its  end,  for  at  the  close  of  1564  the  royal 
council  at  Madrid  voted  that  an  interview  should  be 
arranged  at  Bayonne  between  Catherine  and  her  daughter, 
the  Queen  of  Spain.^ 

Just  at  this  time,  when  the  discontent  of  the  Huguenots 
was  reaching  its  highest  pitch,  an  incident  occurred  (8  Jan., 
1565)  which  showed  they  might  have  support  outside  their 
own  ranks  in  any  renewal  of  the  conflict  between  them,  and 
the  ultra-orthodox  party  led  by  the  House  of  Lorraine. 
When  Catherine  started  on  her  journey,  she  had  given 
Marshal  Montmorency,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Constable, 
Governor  of  Paris,  strict  orders,  renewed  by  letters  at  inter- 
vals, to  maintain  the  peace  at  all  hazards.  When  she  heard 
in  the  end  of  December  of  some  mysterious  movement  of 
noblemen  in  the  northern  part  of  France,  she  sent  him 
renewed  orders  to  allow  no  one  to  enter  the  city  of  Paris 
followed  by  armed  attendants.  Soon  after  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine  came  through  the  gates  followed  by  fifty 
musketeers,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Marsh^al 
sent  him  orders  not  to  do  so.  The  police  attempted 
to  stop  him,  but  were  obliged  to  come  back  to  the 
Marshal  and  report  that  they  were  not  strong  enough. 
Whereupon  Montmorency  went  out,  followed  by  his  friends 
and  servitors,  and  met  the  Cardinal  in  the  street.  Shots 
were  fired  on  both  sides;  a  gentleman  of  the  party  of  Mont- 
morency and  one  of  the  servitors  of  the  Cardinal  were  killed  ; 
the  train  was  partly  disarmed  and  dispersed  and  the  Car- 
dinal was  compelled  to  take  refuge  in  a  shop.  He  com- 
plained bitterly  to  the  King  and  cited  the  Queen's  per- 
mission to  have  a  guard  of  fifty  arquebusiers.  Mont- 
morency replied  that  if  that  was  the  case  he  ought  to  have 
sent  him  word  and  quoted  the  express  orders  of  the  King 
and  Queen  to  allow  no  arms  to  be  brought  into  Paris.    The 

*A.  N.  K.  1501  f.  50;  ib.  1502  qtd.  Marcks,  101;  Fontanon,  IV,  279; 
Arch.  C.  VI,  167,  A.  N.  K.  1505  f.  25. 


CATHERINE'S  PLANS  FOR  FRANCE  315 

King  was  pleased  with  Montmorency's  conduct  and  told 
him  so  in  a  letter.^ 

The  affair  made  an  enormous  sensation  not  only  in 
France  but  throughout  Europe.  The  Constable  showed 
the  Queen  a  letter  from  the  Admiral  which  said,  "I  have 
not  hesitated  to  send  to  Marshal  Montmorency,  my  cousin, 
offering  him  all  my  forces."  This  was  no  idle  offer.  The 
Admiral  gathered  his  adherents  and  started  for  Paris,  but, 
finding  the  trouble  over,  retired;  for  which  the  King  wrote 
to  thank  him.^ 

Catherine  tried  to  suppress  the  quarrel  as  she  always 
tried  to  compose  all  quarrels.  Ultimately  the  Marshals 
Vielleville  and  Bourdillon  were  appointed  a  court  of  honor 
to  sit  upon  the  case.  They  advised  the  King  to  write  to 
the  Cardinal  "that  he  was  sure  Montmorency  had  not 
intended  any  personal  offense,  but  only  to  carry  out  the 
King's  orders  and  therefore  he  desired  that  they  should 
remain  good  friends."  In  the  middle  of  the  spring  the 
King  sent  the  strictest  orders  to  allow  none  of  the  chief 
men  of  either  faction  to  enter  Paris.  For  he  had  good  reason 
to  be  afraid  that  the  civil  war  was  about  to  begin  again, 
not  directly  because  of  religion,  but  because  of  the  old 
quarrel  between  the  Montmorencys  and  the  Guise.  In  the 
early  spring  Montmorency  and  the  Chatillons  secured  an 
intercepted  letter  written  by  d'Aumale,  a  younger  brother 
of  the  late  Duke  of  Guise,  to  his  brother,  the  Marquis  of 
Elbeuf,  saying  lies  were  being  told  about  them  in  court  by 
the  Admiral  and  the  Marshal.  They  were  getting  from 
Catherine  "the  most  beautiful  words  in  the  world  of  the 
kind  which  you  know  she  is  accustomed  to  give,"  but  the 
best  thing  to  do  was  to  bind  together  all  the  gentlemen 
of  their  faction,  "our  good  friends  into  a  secret  association 
for  self-defense  and  against  the  Admiral  and  the  Marshal." 
The  Guises  said  they  never  wrote  the  letter,  but  there  is 

^E.g.  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3204  Granvelle  (1)  VIII,  600  B.  N,  fds.  fr.  3188 
f.  6  ib.  3204. 

*B.  N.  It.  1724  f.  249;  ib.  1725  f.  66.  fds.  fr.  6627  f.  44. 


316  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

no  particular  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  a  forgery.  At 
all  events  Catherine  acted  as  if  she  thought  it  was  genuine, 
because  the  royal  council  drew  up  the  formula  of  an  oath 
entering  a  royal  league  and  renouncing  all  other  associa- 
tions, which  was  sent  through  the  kingdom  to  be  signed 
by  all  the  gentlemen  of  France.^ 

*  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3194,  3243,  3950;  f.  60  f.  49.    B.  N.  It.  1725  f.  82  Bethune, 
8686  f.  31  ib.  8717  f.  29,  Marcks,  142  n.    Conde,  V,  274;  B.  N.  It.  1725  f.  82. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE   AND  THE   COUNCIL  OF  TRENT 

The  journey  on  which  Catherine  started  in  the  early- 
spring  of  1564  occupied  twenty-six  months  and  covered 
nearly  three  thousand  miles  on  horseback  or  by  barges  on 
the  rivers.  It  led  her  from  the  apple  orchards  of  Normandy 
to  the  vineyards  of  Burgundy  and  then  through  the  orange 
groves  of  Provence  and  the  swamps  of  the  Mediterranean 
haunted  by  great  flocks  of  flamingoes,  to  the  clear  cold 
fountains  of  Angouleme,  whose  outlet  is  "entirely  covered 
with  swans,  bordered  with  crayfish,  and  paved  with  trout." 
Thence  they  went  on  past  the  ninety  miles  of  the  salt 
marshes  of  Marennes,  through  the  prairies  of  Nantes,  back 
to  the  fertile  basin  of  the  Loire;  whence  they  started  south 
again  through  the  huge  flocks  of  long  fleeced  sheep  in  the 
mountains  of  Auvergne,  down  into  the  very  centre  of 
France  in  the  volcanic  hills  of  Puy  de  Dome,  from  whose 
rocky  ravines  terrible  storms  of  thunder  and  hail  sweep 
down  upon  the  fertile  wheat  fields  below ;  then  north  again 
by  a  different  route  across  the  rich  basin  of  the  Seine  to 
Paris.  ^ 

Catherine  bore  the  fatigues  of  the  journey  well  and  in 
spite  of  the  discomfort,  it  must  have  been  a  pleasure  to  her, 
for  she  loved  to  meet  people,  to  exercise  power  and  to  handle 
delicate  situations.  On  the  whole  it  is  hard  to  see  how  she 
could  have  done  better  than  she  did  in  managing  tactfully 
the  furious  factions  who,  everywhere,  told  her  exactly  op- 
posite stories  about  the  wrongs  they  suffered  from  the  other 
side.  The  lords  at  whose  chateaux  they  stopped,  the  cities 
little  and  big  and  even  the  villages,  rivalled  each  other  in 

*  Jouan,  12, 14,  17,  29,  30,  33,  37,  38,  39.    Vidal. 

317 


318  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

showing  the  best  hospitality  they  could  to  their  young  King. 
The  party  were  probably  rather  tired  of  seeing  country 
dances  of  the  various  provinces  danced  by  the  most  beau- 
tiful young  girls  of  the  neighborhood.  Frequently  the  King 
and  his  mother  were  asked  to  hold  the  child  of  a  nobleman 
at  the  baptismal  font  and,  if  it  was  a  girl,  they  always 
gave  it  their  two  names  joined:  Charlotte-Catherine.^ 

In  the  great  city  of  Lyons,  however,  their  pleasure  was 
destroyed  by  a  terrible  calamity  from  which  they  were 
obliged  to  flee.  The  plague  broke  out  with  fearful  viru- 
lence. The  English  Ambassador  writing  from  the  place 
where  the  court  had  taken  refuge,  said,  "The  dead  are 
lying  in  the  streets  all  day  long  and  at  night  they  are  cast 
into  the  river  because  the  people  can  not  dig  graves.  The 
servants  who  went  into  the  city  to  get  food,  told  me  that 
they  had  seen  a  man  lying  groaning  in  the  street  all 
day  long  with  no  one  to  take  care  of  him.  Almost  as 
many  were  dying  of  hunger  and  lack  of  care  as  of  the 
plague."  2 

The  apex  of  the  whole  journey  to  Catherine  was  the 
interview  with  her  daughter,  the  Queen  of  Spain,  which 
took  place  in  the  city  of  Bayonne  where  Elizabeth  stayed 
seventeen  days.  On  the  banks  of  the  river  which  separated 
France  from  Spain,  Catherine  had  erected  a  beautiful 
pavilion  in  which  there  was  spread  "a  very  rich  luncheon 
of  fine  hams  and  tongues,  pastries,  all  sorts  of  fruits,  salads, 
sweetmeats,  and  a  great  abundance  of  good  wine."  The 
Queen  of  Spain  came  down  to  the  river  bank  accompanied 
by  three  hundred  mounted  archers  of  the  royal  Spanish 
guard.  While  the  French  soldiers  on  the  other  bank  fired 
repeated  salvoes,  she  embarked  and  met  the  royal  French 
barge  in  the  middle  of  the  river,  where  the  King  embraced 
her  and  took  her  on  to  his  boat.  They  spent  an  hour  at 
luncheon  while  drums,  trumpets  and  hautboys  sounded  in 
loud  melody  from  all  sides.    Then  the  King  gave  his  sister 

*  Jouan. 

«Cal.  F.  1564,  p.  175, 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  319 

a  beautiful  white  hackney  on  which  she  put  a  splendid 
caparison  worth  four  hundred  thousand  ducats,  which  had 
been  her  husband's  wedding  gift  and  made  her  entry  into 
the  city  of  Bayonne  by  torchlight. 

A  few  days  later  Catherine  gave  a  great  picnic  on  an 
island  in  the  river  whose  center  was  a  beautiful  grassy 
meadow  surrounded  by  lofty  woods.  In  niches  formed  in 
these  woods  were  placed  round  tables  each  for  a  dozen  per- 
sons. The  royal  table,  at  the  head  of  this  stately  open- 
air  dining  salon,  was  raised  on  a  bank  of  turf.  The  tables 
were  served  by  groups  of  court  ladies  dressed  as  "peasant 
girls  in  satin  and  cloth  of  gold  according  to  the  costumes 
of  the  various  provinces  of  France."  When  the  boats  of 
the  guests  reached  the  isle  from  Bayonne,  "after  a  voyage 
accompanied  by  continuous  music  from  several  marine  gods 
singing  and  reciting  verses  around  the  royal  barge,"  the 
shepherdesses  received  them,  "each  troup  dancing  according 
to  the  custom  of  its  province,  the  Poitevines  with  the  bag- 
pipes, the  Provengales  dancing  la  Volte  with  the  cymbals, 
the  Burgundians  and  Champagnoises  with  the  little  oboe, 
violins  and  rustic  tambourines,  the  Bretonnes  dancing  their 
passe-pieds  and  branles-gais,  etc.  When  the  feast  was  over 
a  huge  luminous  rock  rolled  into  the  center  out  of  which 
came  a  group  of  satyrs  playing  instruments.  After  them 
descended  a  band  of  nymphs  whose  beauty  and  whose  jewels 
dimmed  the  lights.  They  began  a  beautiful  ballet,  but 
envious  fortune,  unable  to  bear  its  glory,  sent  such  a  terrible 
rainstorm  that  the  confusion  of  the  night  retreat  by  boat 
gave  the  next  morning  as  many  good  stories  to  laugh  at  as 
the  festival  had  given  thrills  of  pleasure."  A  few  days  later 
there  was  a  magnificent  tournament  fought  on  either  side 
by  champions  commanded  respectively  by  the  King  and  his 
brother.  The  companies  entered  the  lists  in  triumphal 
chariots  drawn  by  four  beautiful  white  hackneys.  One 
chariot  was  crowned  by  the  figure  of  Venus  and  covered 
with  cloth  of  gold.  The  other  was  crowned  by  the  figure 
of  Cupid  and  covered  with  cloth  ot  silver.    The  tourna- 


320  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

merit  lasted  for  three  hours  and  was  followed  by  a  display 
of  fireworks.* 

These  continuous  festivals,  among  the  most  costly  ever 
given  by  the  splendor-loving  Catherine,  were  meant  to 
conceal  the  real  object  of  the  meeting,  which  was  a  matter 
of  grave  suspicion  to  the  Huguenot  party  in  France  and  to 
all  Protestants  throughout  the  world.  Philip's  fear  of 
arousing  by  an  interview  dangerous  Protestant  suspicion 
was  fully  justified  by  the  event  and  some  modern  historians 
have  called  Catherine's  persistence  in  arranging  this  inter- 
view the  most  shortsighted  thing  in  the  diplomacy  of  her 
entire  life.  After  the  meeting  was  over,  it  continued  to  be 
regarded  as  sinister  by  all  dissidents  from  the  ancient 
church,  and  seven  years  later  they  concluded  that  their 
suspicion  had  been  justified  by  the  night  of  St.  Bartholomew. 
Many  historians  have  accepted  this  conclusion,  but  it  was 
wrong,  for  we  know  by  documents  not  accessible  until  recent 
years  that  St.  Bartholomew  was  not  planned  at  Bayonne. 
We  must  be  a  little  less  positive  in  regard  to  the  details  of 
what  did  take  place  there,  but  it  is  plain  enough  what 
Catherine  tried  to  get  and  what  Philip  did  get  from  her. 
She  did  not  want  to  yield  to  her  son-in-law,  but  she  hoped 
to  become  very  much  better  friends  with  him.  It  was  not 
unnatural  for  her  to  feel  that  a  personal  interview  would 
very  much  help  this,  when  she  remembered  the  interviews 
which  Francis  I  had  held  with  Henry  VIII  and  Charles  V, 
and  she  wrote  there  were  things  she  could  only  say  to  the 
King  of  Spain  himself.  In  addition  she  was  not  insensible 
to  the  effect  upon  the  world  of  the  spectacle  of  the  greatest 
King  and  Queen  in  Christendom  coming  together  to  meet 
their  mother,  "the  merchant's  daughter."  Above  all  she 
hoped  finally  to  arrange  the  best  possible  marriages  for  her 
children.^ 

Philip  would  not  come  and  therefore  we  have  very  full 
reports  of  his  representative,  the  Duke  of  Alva.    Philip  had 

Toil  f\xi    i^  3.rff  Jirpf^ 
•Letts. 'X  123;  A.' N.  K.  1501  f.  29,  Granvelle  (1)  IX,  314.  517. 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  321 

insisted  that  if  Catherine  brought  any  Huguenots  in  her 
train,  he  would  not  permit  his  wife  to  cross  the  river  to  see 
her  mother.  The  leader  of  the  Catholics,  the  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine,  was  absent  at  the  Council  of  Trent  and  the  people 
of  importance  whom  Alva  considered  "dependable  for  the 
cause  the  King  desires  to  promote"  were  the  Constable,  the 
Cardinal  of  Bourbon  (both  of  whom  he  regards  as  orthodox 
but  unwilling  to  take  the  initiative).  More  energetic  par- 
tisans were  the  Cardinal  of  Guise,  Damville,  the  Duke  of 
Montpensier  and  Monluc.  The  Cardinal  of  Guise  told  him 
that  three  or  four  unhappy  people  were  the  only  cause  of 
the  trouble  in  the  realm  and  that  it  was  deplorable  to  see 
some  willing  to  support  them  in  their  evil  simply  because 
they  were  related  to  them  by  blood.  Damville,  the  Con- 
stable's second  son,  said,  "If  he  were  cut  in  pieces  and  his 
breast  were  opened,  the  name  of  Philip  would  be  found 
engraved  on  his  heart."  "As  far  as  Monluc  is  concerned," 
Alva  writes,  "knowing  the  great  vanity  of  that  person,  I 
determined  to  take  hold  of  him  on  his  weak  side.  ...  I 
said,  'Sir,  this  whole  assembly  of  princes  and  princesses  and 
great  personages  is  entirely  your  work,  because  it  was  your 
report  advocating  this  interview  which  induced  the  King 
of  Spain  to  agree  to  it.'  ...  As  he  listened  to  my  words  he 
was  seized  by  a  most  terrible  fit  of  vanity  and  laid  his  whole 
heart  open  to  me."  He  promised  to  write  out  his  opinion, 
which  Alva  forwarded.^ 

Monluc's  memoir  estimated  that  in  Champagne,  Bur- 
gundy, Lyonnais,  Auvergne,  Provence,  Languedoo  and  the 
larger  part  of  Guienne,  the  orthodox  party  were  the 
stronger.  Dauphiny,  Xaintonge,  and  the  greater  part  of 
Poitou  were  badly  infected,  but  in  Anjou  and  Touraine, 
from  Orleans  to  Paris,  orthodoxy  prevailed  and  no  other 
part  of  the  kingdom  was  affected  except  a  part  of  Picardy 
and  Normandy.  Summing  it  all  up,  he  believed  that  five- 
sixths  of  the  kingdom  was  held  by  the  orthodox.  The  whole 
matter  could  be  settled  by  an  edicx  that  any  man  who  does 

*GraiiveUe  (1),  pntd.  IX,  281;  A.  N.  K.  1503  f.  15. 


322  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

not  wish  to  live  in  the  King's  religion,  must  leave  France 
within  a  month,  with  permission  to  sell  his  estates,  and  he 
assured  Philip  that  this  is  really  what  the  Queen  Mother 
wants  to  do  and  intends  to  do.  It  is  hard  to  avoid  the  con- 
clusion that,  just  as  Alva  had  fooled  Monluc  through  his 
terrible  vanity,  so  the  Queen  was  making  a  tool  of  the  old 
soldier  to  persuade  Philip  that  this  was  what  she  meant  to 
do  and  so  get  an  agreement  to  her  real  object  in  holding  the 
conference.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Catherine  did  not  intend  at 
this  time  to  do  anything  of  the  sort,  unless  she  was  abso- 
lutely obliged  to  do  it.  The  Duke  of  Montpensier  suggested 
in  the  name  of  the  nobles  named  by  Alva,  that  heretic 
ministers  should  be  given  a  month  to  leave  the  country  and 
heretic  services  forbidden,  that  the  decisions  of  the  Council 
of  Trent  should  be  immediately  published  and  enforced,  and 
that  no  man  whose  orthodoxy  was  suspected  should  be  al- 
lowed to  hold  an  office  or  even  be  received  at  court.  The 
messenger  who  brought  this  opinion  said  to  the  Spanish  Am- 
bassador that  it  contained  only  the  minimum  of  what  was 
necessary  to  be  done,  and  that  it  would  be  better  and  simpler 
to  cut  off  the  heads  of  Conde,  the  Admiral,  d'Andelot,  La 
Rochefoucauld,  and  Grammont.  The  Duke  of  Alva 
thought  the  little  knot  of  nobles  headed  by  Montpensier 
were  looking  entirely  to  the  King  of  Spain  and  as  loyal  to 
him  as  if  they  were  his  own  subjects.^ 

But  when  he  began  to  approach  the  King  and  Queen 
he  found  things  entirely  different.  When  he  told  the  King 
that  he  was  chosen  of  God  to  put  his  hand  to  a  great  work 
of  chastisement,  the  King  answered,  "No;  taking  up  arms 
is  not  to  be  thought  of.  I  don't  want  to  destroy  my  king- 
dom as  they  had  begun  to  do  in  the  last  war."  He  then 
determined  to  force  the  Queen  Mother  to  declare  herself. 
In  the  conversation,  at  which  only  the  Queen  of  Spain  was 
present,  Alva  thought  that  Catherine  "displayed  in  her 
manner  of  handling  the  subject  more  tact  and  skill  than  I 

'  Monluc,  V,  33;  Letta.  II,  pntd.  Int.  73  Comp.  Marcks,  186.  A.  N.  K. 
150:;  f.  18. 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  323 

have  ever  found  in  any  person  under  any  circumstances." 
Alva  said  that  the  two  kingdoms  were  equally  concerned  in 
this  matter  because  the  infection  of  France  would  un- 
doubtedly spread  to  Spain,  so  that  his  master  thought  his 
crown  and  perhaps  his  life  was  involved  m  this  danger. 
The  only  thing  his  master  cared  to  negotiate  about  was 
driving  out  of  France  that  evil  sect.  Catherine  was  "ex- 
ceedingly cold  about  religion  and  really  attentive  to  nothing 
except  the  matter  of  the  marriages  of  her  children.  She 
kept  saying  that  to  help  the  troubles  of  religion  there  is 
nothing  better  than  to  unite  the  two  crowns  and  the  two 
houses  by  new  bonds."  As,  for  instance,  by  marrying 
Catherine's  youngest  daughter,  Margaret,  to  the  heir  of 
the  Spanish  throne  and  her  second  son,  the  Duke  of  Orleans, 
to  the  Princess  of  Portugal,  to  whom  the  King  of  Spain 
might  present  a  state  in  order  that  the  young  couple  might 
set  up  as  King  and  Queen.  So  the  fencing  went  on ;  Alva 
insisting  on  the  extermination  of  heresy  in  France,  Catherine 
upon  the  marriages  of  her  children,  and  neither  agreeing  to 
anything  the  other  wanted.^ 

Catherine  did  not  mean,  however,  to  go  away  without 
some  visible  result  and  when  the  interview  was  formally 
over,  she  played  her  last  card.  Marshal  Bourdillon,  who 
had  the  name  of  being  a  moderate,  was  sent  to  tell  Alva 
quietly  that  Catherine  had  said  that  if  the  King  of  Spain 
would  make  the  marriage  for  her  second  son  and  give  him 
a  state  as  a  marriage  portion,  she  would  arrange  to  fix  all 
the  difficulties  about  religion.  Alva  made  no  comment  on 
this  offer  except  to  write  in  his  last  letter  that  it  would  be 
time  enough  to  talk  about  those  marriages  when  something 
has  really  been  done  in  France  to  suppress  heresy.  Then, 
believing  that  everything  was  lost  "unless  God  helps,"  he 
prepared  to  leave  Bayonne  in  great  discontent. 

But  when  the  conference  was  closed,  Catherine,  as  she 
often  did  in  her  letters,  put  the  most  important  thing  into 

'Granvelle  (1)  IX,  307;  A.  N.  K.  1503  f,  30,  ib.  1508  f.  38. 


324  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

a  postscript.  She  crossed  the  border  with  her  daughter  and 
went  with  her  a  little  bit  into  Spain. 

The  Spanish  Ambassador  wrote  to  Philip :  "At  St.  Jean 
de  Luz  the  tears  of  Her  Majesty's  mother  and  brothers 
began  to  flow  and  certainly  they  were  many.  The  Con- 
stable finally  went  into  the  King's  room  and  told  him  he 
ought  not  to  cry  for  it  would  be  much  noticed  by  strangers 
and  his  vassals,  because  tears  were  very  unbecoming  to  the 
eyes  of  a  King."  Weeping  was  suspended  long  enough  to 
hold  a  last  conference  in  the  presence  of  the  Guise,  the 
Bourbons,  the  Constable  and  the  Duke  of  Montpensier.  The 
Ambassador  wrote  of  it:  "If  the  agreement  which  the  Duke 
of  Alva  will  tell  your  Majesty  was  made  here,  is  carried  out, 
it  is  all  that  can  be  desired  for  the  service  of  God  and 
Your  Majesty."  * 

What  was  this  agreement?  Was  it  only  "to  take  aU 
arms  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Huguenots?"  Was  it  to  seize 
and  execute  or  imprison  their  chiefs?  Or  was  it,  as  was 
afterwards  believed,  the  plan  for  their  treacherous  exter- 
mination which  was  attempted  seven  years  later  at  St. 
Bartholomew?  A  study  of  the  Spanish  dispatches  makes 
the  answer  to  these  questions  as  certain  as  our  knowledge 
can  be  about  anything  of  which  we  have  no  direct  record. 

The  first  means  of  telling  what  was  agreed  upon  in  that 
conference  is  that  we  know  precisely  what  the  two  points 
were  which  the  Duke  of  Alva  had  been  trying  to  get  from 
Catherine.  First,  that  the  kingdom  of  France  should  accept 
and  put  in  force  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent  which 
had  just  closed  its  session  and  second,  that  the  King  should 
take  measures  for  "the  punishment  of  the  rebels  and  those 
astray  in  the  matter  of  religion."  We  know  also  that  up 
to  the  very  end  of  the  formal  conferences  the  Duke  was 
very  much  disgusted  because  Catherine  would  pay  no  atten- 
tion to  these  demands  and  did  not  seem  to  care  for  anything 
except  the  marriages  of  her  children.  So,  even  if  we  had 
no  other  evidence,  it  would  be  fair  to  conclude  that,  when 

^GranveUe  (1)  IX,  30;  Letts.  II,  297.    A.  N.  K.  1503  f.  47. 


THE  INTERVIEW  OP  BAYONNE  325 

he  expressed  himself  as  fully  satisfied  with  the  result  of  the 
last  interview,  it  must  have  included  the  granting  of  these 
two  points.^  But  we  have  other  evidence.  A  careful  study 
of  the  reports  of  the  subsequent  conversations  between 
Catherine  and  the  Spanish  Ambassador  when  he  complained 
she  was  breaking  her  promises  made  at  Bayonne,  leaves 
no  reasonable  doubt  that  the  agreement  did  include  these 
two  points  and  makes  it  certain  that  it  did  not  include  any 
plot  for  what  happened  seven  years  later  on  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's day. 

It  is  evident  that  the  Spaniards  feared  from  the  first 
Catherine  would  not  keep  her  promises.  A  few  days  after 
she  left  Bayonne,  the  Ambassador  reports  a  conversation 
with  her.  "The  Queen  withdrew  a  little  from  bystanders 
who  might  overhear  wha4)  she  said  and,  leaning  quite  close 
to  my  ear,  said,  'Think  me  no  true  woman  if  I  do  not  carry 
out  all  that  was  agreed  upon  with  my  son,  but,  as  you  said 
to  me  the  other  day,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  be 
exceedingly  secret  because  already  many  people  are  very 
much  alarmed  over  what  may  happen.'  "  The  Ambassador 
adds,  "Nevertheless  I  must  say  to  Your  Majesty  that  I  am 
very  much  afraid  of  the  influence  upon  the  Queen's  mind 
of  the  heretics  of  this  court  and  that  her  zeal  may  be  cooled 
by  outside  influences."  The  next  month  we  find  him  re- 
porting that  Catherine  is  insisting  upon  the  carrying  out 
of  the  marriages  as  a  preliminary  to  fulfilhng  the  promises 
made  in  the  interview,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  promises 
were  not  at  all  conditional  on  the  marriages.^ 

In  January,  1566,  five  months  later,  the  Ambassador 
reported  again  to  Philip  that  he  had  blamed  the  Queen  for 
allowing  the  Admiral  to  come  to  court  and  she  had  told  him 
that  he  thought  he  knew  her  affairs  better  than  she  did 
herself.  He  replied,  "You  are  not  keeping  a  single  one  of 
the  promises  you  made  to  my  master  although,  now  that  the 
leading  presidents  of  all  the  parlements  are  met  together,  it 

'  A.  N.  K.  1503  f .  38. 

»A.  N.  K.  1503  f.  50,  60,  74. 


326  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

would  be  perfectly  easy  to  recall  the  pernicious  tolerant 
edicts  which  have  already  been  issued  in  this  kingdom." 
The  next  month  he  reports  another  conversation  in  which 
he  told  her  that  the  Admiral  controls  everything,  and  that 
she  had  not  kept  her  promises  and  was  not  carrying  out  the 
"remedy  agreed  upon  in  the  interview  of  Bayonne  for  the 
condition  of  religion  in  this  kingdom."  In  particular  she  was 
not  recalling  "the  pernicious  edict"  (Amboise).  The  next 
month  he  reports  that  "since  the  Queen  Mother  is  post- 
poning to  such  an  unbearable  extent  the  execution  of  what 
she  had  promised  in  regard  to  religion,  Philip  ought  to  write 
her  a  strong  letter  or  else  get  his  wife  to  do  it."  The  month 
after  that  Philip  wrote  to  his  Ambassador  approving  his 
activity  in  urging  the  Queen  to  carry  out  the  resolutions 
taken  at  Bayonne  and  says  he  cannot  talk  too  freely  about 
it  to  the  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid  because,  "as  you 
know,  he  is  not  one  of  those  who  understand  the  particulars 
of  the  agreement."  In  reply  the  Ambassador  said  that 
the  Cardinal  of  Bourbon  had  offered  in  the  Queen's  name 
a  plain  bargain,  that,  if  the  marriages  of  her  children  were 
once  made,  they  would  drive  all  the  ministers  out  of  France 
and  support  in  the  strongest  way  the  orthodox  religion. 
Then  suddenly,  at  the  end  of  June,  the  tone  changes  and  the 
Ambassador  is  evidently  under  the  impression  that  the 
Queen  "had  promised  that  within  five  months  she  would 
publish  the  canons  of  the  Council  of  Trent  and  drive  the 
ministers  from  the  kingdom."  But  Catherine  was  only 
playing  with  him.  The  next  month  he  reported  that  the 
Queen  was  again  back  at  the  old  bargain,  "marriages  first 
and  then  'the  remedy.' "  When  he  pointed  out  that  "the 
remedy"  was  a  distinct  agreement  on  her  part  and  the 
marriages  left  as  a  thing  to  be  afterwards  discussed  "she 
grew  very  angry."  ^ 

It  is  evident  from  their  correspondence  that,  from 
a  year  after  Bayonne,  neither  Philip  nor  anyone  in 
his  council  expected  Catherine  to  keep  the  promise  she 

*A.  N.  K.  1503  f.  2,  19,  67,  79,  96,  102. 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  327 

made  at  the  end  of  the  conference  to  do  her  utmost  to 
destroy  heresy  by  revoking  the  Edict  of  Amboise  and  en- 
forcing in  France  the  new  canons  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 
Manifestly  they  had  never  expected  her  to  do  more  than 
this. 

It  is  true  that  many  years  later  Henry  of  Navarre  said 
that  at  Bayonne  (when  he  was  between  eleven  and  twelve 
years  old)  listening  to  a  talk  between  Alva  and  Catherine, 
he  heard  Alva  say,  "The  head  of  one  salmon  is  worth  the 
heads  of  a  hundred  frogs."  But  the  memories  of  a  boy  of 
eleven  years  old  are  not  apt  to  be  accurate  and  one  cannot 
help  remarking  in  regard  to  a  number  of  the  reminiscences 
of  Henry  IV,  that  his  memory  after  a  lapse  of  years  had 
the  habit  of  taking  a  decidedly  dramatic  turn.  It  is  very 
hard  to  prove  a  negative,  but  to  one  who  keeps  firmly  in 
mind  the  difference  between  history  and  drama,  a  calm 
review  of  all  contemporary  evidence  makes  it  so  highly 
probable  as  to  be  practically  certain,  that  no  suggestion 
was  made  by  Spain  to  Catherine  at  Bayonne  of  a  general 
treacherous  massacre  of  the  entire  Huguenot  party.  There 
is  even  more  reason  to  believe  that,  if  it  had  been  made 
she  would  not  then  have  thought  for  a  moment  of  carrying 
it  out. 

The  suspicions  raised  in  the  minds  of  the  Huguenots 
by  the  interview  at  Bayonne  made  the  task  of  preventing 
France  from  falling  back  into  civil  war  even  harder  than 
it  had  been  for  Catherine.  She  was  under  constant  pressure 
from  Spain  to  revoke  the  Edict  of  Amboise  because  it 
granted  toleration  to  the  Huguenots.  The  Huguenots  were 
continually  telling  her  that  the  toleration  it  granted  was 
illusory,  while  the  extreme  Catholics  asserted  that  the 
Huguenots  steadily  transgressed  the  limits  of  the  too  ample 
liberties  there  granted  to  them.  The  complaints  of  both 
sides  were  on  the  whole  justified.  But  the  wrongs  com- 
plained of  by  the  Huguenots  were  decidedly  more  intoler- 
able, for  they  included  such  things  as  mobs  killing  Hugue- 
nots on  their  way  to  their  legally  appointed  places  of  wor- 


328  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

ship,  or  the  murder  and  mutilation  by  a  mob  of  a  commis- 
sary sent  to  a  town  to  investigate  the  plundering  of  a 
Huguenot  temple,  or  things  like  this  told  in  the  journal 
of  du  Maurier,  son  of  a  country  gentleman  of  modest  means: 
"I  have  often  heard  my  mother  say  that,  just  before  I  was 
born,  she  several  times  had  the  greatest  difficulty  to  save 
herself  from  being  drowned  like  others  of  all  ages  and  sexes 
by  a  great  lord  of  the  country,  a  persecutor  of  religion.  He 
had  them  thrown  into  a  river  close  by  his  house  saying  that 
he  would  make  them  drink  out  of  his  big  saucer."  For 
these  wrongs  the  Huguenots  claimed  that  they  could  seldom 
obtain  justice  and  letters  of  protest  from  men  like  Coligny 
and  Conde  recorded  an  ever  rising  number  of  such  murders. 
Just  how  widespread  they  were  and  whether  the  situation 
of  the  Huguenots  was  more  intolerable  than  the  horrors  of 
civil  war,  is  a  thing  which  was  difficult  to  judge  at  the  time 
and  impossible  to  decide  after  the  lapse  of  generations. 
That  a  really  strong  monarch  could  have  suppressed  them 
is  probable,  that  a  woman  in  the  situation  of  Catherine 
could  have  stopped  them,  is  more  doubtful.  The  only 
thing  certain  is  that  the  acceptance  of  the  advice  of  her 
son-in-law  to  cure  the  disorder  of  France  by  revoking  the 
Edict  of  Amboise  and  entirely  forbidding  Reformed  wor- 
ship in  the  kingdom,  would  instantly  have  renewed  the 
civil  war.^ 

The  second  thing  which  Philip  urged  upon  Catherine — 
the  immediate  acceptance  of  the  canons  and  decrees  of  the 
Council  of  Trent — would  have  been  even  more  difficult  to 
carry  out;  for  it  would  have  been  resisted  not  only  by  the 
Reformed  church  but  by  many  Catholics.  In  order  to 
understand  the  difficulty  of  this  proposed  action  we  must 
briefly  review  the  position  of  the  French  Church  and 
Catherine's  relations  to  the  Council  of  Trent. 

The  Council  of  Constance  in  the  beginning  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  had  deposed  the  three  contesting  Popes 

*La  Popeliniere,  Bk.  X,  Challe  qtd.  I,  112;  Brimont,  II,  11;  OEuvre 
6  qtd.  Mss. 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  329 

and  elected  a  new  Pope  by  a  method  of  election  never 
before  used.  Not  content  with  this  assumption  of  authority, 
it  had  explicitly  declared  that  the  decision  of  an  ecumenical 
council  was  the  supreme  authority  in  the  Church.  It  had 
committed  the  reform  of  the  Church  in  head  and  members 
to  the  new  Pope,  Martin  V,  and  added  the  decree  that  this 
mandate  was  to  be  carried  out  in  cooperation  with  future 
councils  meeting  at  intervals  of  ten  years.  This  decision 
in  regard  to  periodical  councils  had  never  been  followed. 
When  protest  became  too  insistent,  Pius  II  in  1460  issued 
the  bull  "execrable  and  in  early  times  unheard  of"  in  which 
he  said  that  the  doctrine  of  conciliar  supremacy  was  her- 
etical and  anathematized  anyone  who  should  dare  to  appeal 
from  his  decision  to  a  council.  But  in  spite  of  this  prohi- 
bition, the  manifest  corruptions  of  the  Church  made  the 
need  of  a  council  more  and  more  manifest  toward  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  real  cause  of  the  death  of 
Savonarola  was  his  appeal  to  the  princes  of  Europe  to 
summon  a  council  to  hear  his  complaints  against  Pope 
Alexander  VI.  In  the  early  sixteenth  century,  at  almost 
the  same  time  the  University  of  Paris  and  Martin  Luther 
demanded  the  summoning  of  an  ecumenical  council.  When 
the  great  German  schism  began,  the  emperor  Charles  V, 
who  desired  to  save  the  unity  of  the  Empire,  was  so  in- 
sistent in  his  demand  for  a  general  council  that  the  Pope 
was  obliged  to  call  one  in  Italy  in  1536.  It  was,  however, 
continually  adjourned  and  nine  years  later  had  accom- 
plished practically  nothing.  Then,  in  1545,  under  great 
pressure  from  the  Emperor,  the  Pope  finally  reconvened  the 
Council  in  the  city  of  Trent,  on  the  southern  slopes  of  the 
Alps,  but  within  the  bounds  of  the  Empire.  Contrary  to 
the  wish  of  the  Emperor  the  Council  at  once  took  up,  not 
the  practical  reform  of  the  Church,  but  the  definition  of 
doctrine  and  proceeded  to  pass  certain  decrees  in  which 
the  divergences  between  the  Church  doctrine  and  the 
teaching  of  the  Protestants  were  emphasized  as  much  as 
possible.    After  seven  years  of  irregular  work,  with  long 


330  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

intervals  of  suspension,  the  Council  went  out  of  session  in 
1552  because  it  was  threatened  by  the  approach  of  the  army 
of  the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany.  It  did  not  assemble 
again  for  ten  years. 

Meantime  the  French  Crown  had  become  very  much 
interested  in  the  Council  as  a  means  of  bringing  about  the 
reunion  of  Christendom.  In  July,  1560,  Francis  II  wrote 
to  his  ambassador  at  Madrid  to  urge  upon  Philip  II  the 
need  of  a  general  council  to  settle  the  religious  troubles  of 
the  world.  He  wanted,  however,  not  a  resumption  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  but  a  new  council  held  in  some  place 
accessible  to  all  and  perfectly  satisfactory  to  the  Protestants. 
This  came  out  of  Catherine's  policy  of  conciliation,  but  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  also  favored  it,  for  he  was  quite 
inclined  to  accept  some  Lutheran  views;  more  particularly 
in  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith.  He  had 
great  confidence  in  his  own  undoubted  skill  as  a  theologian 
and  a  preacher  and  repeatedly  declared  that  he  held  firmly 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Galilean  Church  that  a  general  coun- 
cil was  the  supreme  authority  in  the  Church  and  superior 
to  the  authority  of  the  Pope. 

Catherine  was  very  strongly  in  favor  of  calling  a  general 
council  and  hoped  to  get  all  the  Protestant  nations  to  send 
delegates  to  it.  When  as  Regent  she  had  found  the  Papacy 
recalcitrant,  she  prepared  to  summon  a  national  council 
of  the  Gallican  Church,  a  project  which  was  even  more 
repugnant  to  the  supporters  of  the  papal  supremacy  than 
the  idea  of  a  general  council.  The  Pope  yielded  rather 
reluctantly  to  the  pressure  from  France,  Spain  and  Germany 
to  summon  a  council  to  Trent.  His  views  of  its  object 
were,  however,  very  different  from  those  of  the  Emperor 
and  Catherine. 

They  wished  to  reunite  the  Church  by  conciliation,  but 
within  a  few  months  of  its  opening  the  Pope  wanted  to 
form  a  league  between  France,  Spain  and  the  papacy  for 
the  extirpation  of  heresy,  especially  in  France,  and  he  pro- 
posed to  suspend  the  sittings  of  the  Council  until  that  could 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  331 

be  accomplished.  Though  the  Pope  hardly  felt  able  to 
dissolve  the  Council,  he  was  not  obliged  to  accept  decrees 
which  did  not  please  him,  because  they  did  not  vote  by 
nations,  as  the  Council  of  Constance  had  done.  Therefore 
the  preponderance  of  Italian  bishops  gave  him  about  two- 
thirds  of  the  votes  in  general  sittings,  nor  could  anything 
be  considered  by  the  Council  unless  it  was  brought 
forward  by  a  legate.  France  demanded  a  number  of  re- 
forms, many  of  them,  like  vernacular  prayers  and  public 
exposition  of  the  Scriptures,  plainly  intended  to  conciliate 
the  Protestants.  This  action  was  deeply  resented  at  Rome. 
The  French  Ambassador  at  Trent  wrote  Catherine  in  the 
early  days  of  its  session  that  he  had  heard  from  Rome  that 
the  Pope  had  said  he  was  proposing  so  many  novelties  that 
he  seemed  like  an  ambassador  for  the  Huguenots.  He  said 
he  had  not  proposed  anything  except  what  the  Queen  had 
instructed  him  to  propose  and  that  in  the  most  restrained 
words  possible,  "but  there  are  here  some  evil  spirits  who, 
being  afraid  of  the  reformation  of  the  Church  and  desiring 
the  dissolution  of  the  Council  write  continually  to  Rome  all 
the  lies  and  calumnies  possible."  Indeed,  Lansac  felt  so 
strongly  the  lack  of  free  decision  in  the  Council  that  he 
wrote  to  the  French  Ambassador  at  Rome  that  it  was  a 
common  profane  saying  among  the  ambassadors  at  Trent 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  sent  to  guide  the  Council  every 
week  in  a  valise  from  Rome.  More  than  twenty  years 
afterwards  when  Lansac  was  delivering  at  the  Estates  Gen- 
eral of  Blois  a  magnificent  eulogy  on  the  Council  of  Trent 
and  its  decrees,  he  was  much  embarrassed  by  having  the 
royal  Advocate  General,  who  opposed  the  acceptance  of  the 
decrees,  read  this  letter.^ 

Catherine  urged  her  reforms  and  wrote  to  Lansac  that, 
in  spite  of  her  respect  for  the  papal  legates,  she  sees  that 
"their  acts  differ  entirely  from  their  words."  She  begins 
"to  fear  the  Council  will  be  nothing  but  a  brave  show  of 

*B.  N.  Nouvs.  Acqs.  20597,  June,  1562.  "The  Pope  is  master  of  this 
Council."    De  Thou,  III,  432;  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6626  f.  28;  de  Thou,  VII,  322. 


332  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

blossoms  without  any  fruit  of  amendment  and  you  know 
how  much  our  abuses  and  corruptions  need  severe  reforms. 
...  I  am  afraid  that  in  the  end  our  dissimulation  will  draw 
the  anger  of  God  on  our  heads  and  that  the  weight  of  His 
hand  will  make  us  seek  with  tears  and  sighs  the  amendment 
we  now  resist."  ^ 

The  Pope  was  soon  displeased  also  with  the  action  of 
Spain,  for,  within  a  few  months  of  the  opening  of  the 
Council,  Catherine  received  a  letter  from  Rome  informing 
her  that  "the  Pope  is  furious  at  the  King  of  Spain  and  it 
is  said  that  he  will  not  do  anything  that  the  King  of  Spain 
asks  because  he  will  have  no  dealings  with  the  Pope  nor 
acknowledge  his  bulls  or  answer  his  letters."  The  French 
commissioners,  however,  were  urging  much  more  sweeping 
reforms  than  the  Spanish  and  they  desired  to  avoid  the 
discussion  of  doctrines,  which  might  make  the  prospect  of 
the  reunion  of  Christendom  more  difl&cult.  It  was  also  an 
open  secret  that,  while  they  were  willing  not  to  raise  the 
abstract  question  of  whether  the  Pope  or  the  Council  was 
supreme,  they  would,  if  the  question  was  forced,  stand  by 
the  doctrine  of  conciliar  supremacy.  Therefore  the  Pope 
was  prepared,  on  the  whole,  in  case  of  any  quarrel  between 
France  and  Spain,  to  stand  by  Spain.^ 

The  quarrel  arose  when  the  Spanish  Ambassador  by 
previous  agreement  with  the  Legate,  took,  at  one  of 
the  solemn  assemblies  of  the  Council,  a  seat  entirely  by 
himself  on  a  chair  of  black  velvet,  placed  in  a  position 
which  gave  him  ceremonial  precedence  over  all  the  other 
ambassadors.  The  French  Ambassadors  made  so  much 
disturbance  that  they  nearly  broke  up  the  service  in  the 
midst  of  the  recital  of  the  creed.  Catherine  wrote  about  it 
in  the  greatest  indignation  and  treasured  it  up  as  a  very 
great  insult  done  to  her  by  the  King  of  Spain  and  the  Pope. 
Both  Frenchmen  and  Spaniards  continued  to  discuss  it  with 
the  extraordinary  bitterness  which  always,  in  every  age,  is 

*  Letts.  II,  41. 

•B.  N.  Nouvs.,  Acqs.  20597  f.  165. 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  333 

apt  to  mark  discussions  of  questions  of  precedence  or  pres- 
tige. Catherine  also  sent  ambassadors  to  try  to  persuade 
the  Council  and  the  Pope  to  move  the  Council  to  some 
city  in  Germany  and  to  persuade  the  Germans,  the  English, 
the  Dutch,  the  Danes  and  the  Swedes  to  send  delegates  to 
it.    But  her  proposal  scarcely  got  a  hearing. 

Thus  Catherine  got  so  little  satisfaction  out  of  the  action 
of  the  Council  that  she  sent  orders  (naturally  in  the  name 
of  the  King)  to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  who  in  the  year 
1563  had  gone  to  the  Council  and  taken  the  lead  of  the 
French  prelates,  to  assemble  them  in  a  separate  legation 
and  make  a  formal  demand  upon  the  Council  to  satisfy  the 
request  of  France  for  the  reformation  of  the  Church.  The 
terms  of  the  orders  and  the  method  of  the  action  were 
plainly  meant  to  suggest  the  threat  of  withdrawing  from 
the  Council.  The  Cardinal,  however,  delayed  acting  upon 
these  orders,  which  were  not  absolute  and  finally  obtained 
permission  from  the  Crown  to  go  to  Rome  with  the  French 
bishops  in  order  to  have  a  conference  with  the  Pope. 

During  his  absence  the  Council  proceeded  to  pass  certain 
resolutions  which  seemed  to  the  French  royal  council  to 
use  reformation  as  a  pretext  to  decrease  the  power  of  the 
French  Crown  over  the  French  Church,  while  leaving  other 
abuses  whose  center  was  at  Rome  altogether  untouched. 
This  brought  Catherine's  displeasure  with  the  Council  to 
the  highest  pitch  and  a  royal  letter  was  sent  ordering  the 
French  prelates  to  demand  an  explicit  answer  to  the  thirty- 
four  demands  made  by  France  for  the  reformation  of  the 
Church  and,  if  they  failed  to  receive  it,  to  leave  the  city 
of  Trent  and  go  to  Venice  to  wait  for  orders.  This  letter 
said : 

"The  King  had  never  expected  anything  from  the  Council 
except  the  reunion  of  Christendom  and  peace,  which  could  not 
be  brought  about  except  by  a  very  serious  reformation  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline.  But  the  fathers  of  the  Council,  after 
having  very  superficially  touched  on  the  subject  of  reformation, 
were  now  making  every  effort  to  destroy  the  rights,  the  liberties 


334  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

and  the  power  of  princes;  whereas  it  was  no  part  of  their  author- 
ity to  mingle  in  the  civil  government  of  states.  This  was  a  direct 
injury  to  the  public  peace  and  the  King  would  not  suffer  it." 

In  this  strained  situation,  the  French  Ambassador  in 
the  month  of  September,  1563,  delivered  a  most  indignant 
address  before  the  Council.  Du  Ferrier  said  that  Pope  Pius 
IV  was  a  father  without  affection,  who,  in  defiance  of  all  the 
form  of  law,  had  condemned  his  eldest  son  (that  is  to  say, 
the  very  Christian  King)  without  having  heard  him,  taking 
from  him  the  prerogative  which  he  had  always  had  not  to 
grant  precedence  to  anyone  except  the  Emperor.  While 
pretending  to  seek  the  unity  and  concord  of  the  Church, 
he  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  broken  up  a  firm  peace  between 
two  great  powers  by  an  unjust  judgment  which  he  had 
pronounced  against  the  King  during  his  minority.  There- 
fore they  are  compelled  to  leave  a  place  from  which  Pius  IV 
has  banished  all  law  and  where  it  is  not  possible  any  more 
to  have  even  the  shadow  of  liberty.  "For,"  he  asked,  "has 
any  conclusion  ever  been  published  before  it  has  been  sent  to 
Rome  to  get  the  approval  of  the  Pope?  It  is  therefore," 
concluded  the  ambassador,  "Pius  IV  alone  against  whom  we 
protest.  We  have  a  profound  respect  for  the  apostolic 
creed  and  for  the  Holy  Roman  Church,  but  we  refuse  to 
obey  Pius  IV;  we  reject  with  scorn  his  decrees;  we  do  not 
recognize  him  as  the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  head  of 
the  Church,  as  the  legitimate  successor  of  Peter  and,  as 
everything  is  done  at  Rome  and  nothing  at  Trent,  we 
declare  that  everything  that  has  been  done  and  shall  be 
done  in  this  assembly  should  be  taken  as  only  the  personal 
action  of  Pius  IV,  that  the  most  Christian  King  will  never 
approve  of  these  decrees  and  that  the  Church  will  never 
regard  them  as  the  decision  of  a  universal  council.  Arch- 
bishops, abbots,  doctors  of  theology  of  France,  the  King 
orders  you  all  to  leave  Trent,  ready  to  return  as  soon  as  it 
shall  please  God  to  give  to  the  General  Council  of  the 
Catholic  Church  its  ancient  liberty  and  when  there  shall 


THE  INTERVIEW  OF  BAYONNE  335 

have  been  restored  to  the  very  Christian  King  the  rank 
which  belongs  to  his  dignity  and  his  majesty."  ^ 

The  Council  closed  on  the  4th  of  December,  1563,  leav- 
ing a  large  body  of  decrees  and  canons  as  the  result  of  its 
sessions.  The  dogmatic  canons  referred  chiefly  to  those 
doctrines  which  had  been  attacked  or  discussed  by  the 
Protestants.  The  decrees  on  discipline  instituted  many 
very  salutary  reforms  but  did  not  attempt  a  general 
thorough-going  reform  of  the  entire  body  of  church  law  and 
usage. 

A  royal  letter  to  the  French  Ambassador  has  a  phrase 
which  sounds  Uke  one  of  Catherine's,  "The  fathers  of  the 
Council  seem  to  want  to  pass  articles  which  will  file  the 
nails  of  kings  and  let  theirs  grow,"  and  she  was  not  at  all 
anxious  to  adopt  the  canons  and  decrees  of  a  council  which 
had  acted  so  little  according  to  her  wishes.  Nor  was  there 
any  considerable  party  in  the  kingdom  which  desired  to 
adopt  those  decrees  as  they  stood.  The  Cardinal  of  Lor- 
raine indeed,  although  in  the  beginning  of  the  Council  he 
had  acted  as  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  to  the 
papal  party,  had  returned  from  Rome  apparently  converted 
to  the  necessity  of  supporting  the  results  of  the  Council. 
But  the  French  clergy  had  for  many  years  been  unshaken 
in  their  devotion  to  the  Galilean  theory  of  the  Church, 
which  looked  upon  the  Pope  as  the  Bishop  of  the  bishops 
who  presided  over  the  commonwealth  of  Christendom  in 
which  each  nation,  and  particularly  the  French  Nation, 
had  large  fundamental  and  irreducible  liberties  no  pope 
had  a  right  to  take  away.^ 

For  example,  in  the  year  1560  a  certain  postulant  for 
the  degree  of  bachelor  of  theology  had  put  into  his  thesis 
that  "the  Pope,  as  the  monarch  of  the  Church,  had  sovereign 
power  over  all  temporal  things  as  well  as  spiritual  things 
and  could  therefore  deprive  of  their  kingdoms  princes  who 
would  not  submit  to  his  decrees."    The  very  theological 

*De  Thou,  in,  455.    See  Latin  text.    French  is  glossed. 
'Instructions,  158. 


336  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

faculty  of  the  Sorbonne,  which  had  lit  the  fires  of  perse- 
cution and  the  Parlement  of  Paris  which  had  refused  to 
register  the  conciliating  edict  of  Catherine,  joined  in  com- 
peUing  the  young  man  to  retract.  The  Parlement  solemnly 
ordered  the  University  not  to  permit  in  the  future  even  the 
abstract  discussion  of  any  such  thesis.  The  Cardinal  of 
Lorraine  himself  on  his  first  arrival  at  the  Council  of  Trent 
had  said  in  his  harangue,  "I  cannot  deny  that  I  am  a 
Frenchman  educated  at  the  University  of  Paris,  in  which 
it  is  held  that  the  authority  of  the  Council  is  above  that  of 
the  Pope  and  those  who  deny  it  are  condemned  as  heretics." 
A  little  later  he  asserted,  in  the  presence  of  ten  bishops, 
that  the  doctrine  of  conciliar  supremacy  was  "for  him  a 
truth  as  certain  as  that  the  Son  of  God  had  become  man." 
There  was  no  university  or  parlement  in  France  in  which 
the  Protestants  had  the  controlling  influence,  and  yet  there 
was  no  parlement  or  university  in  France  which  would  have 
voted  to  accept  the  decrees  of  Trent  as  they  stood,  because 
they  seemed  to  impinge  upon  the  prerogative  of  the  King 
and  to  destroy  some  of  the  liberties  of  the  Gallican  Church.^ 
'Pasquier,  II,  90;  Conde,  60,  61,  67.    GuUlemm  qtd.  Sarpi,  VIH,  696. 


CHAPTER  XX 

FEUDS  AND  QUAERELS.      HERESY  IN  THE  NETHERLANDS. 
THE   HATRED  OF   SPAIN 

Before  the  royal  progress  through  the  provinces  was 
ended,  Catherine  had  attempted  to  gather  the  fruit  of  it 
in  a  solemn  meeting  for  reform  and  reconciliation,  held  in 
the  city  of  Moulins  in  December,  1565,  which  included 
all  the  members  of  the  royal  family,  the  chief  nobles  of 
France  and  the  leading  members  of  all  the  parlements  of 
the  kingdom.  On  the  legal  side  the  Assembly  was  extremely 
successful.  The  King  issued  the  ordinance  drawn  up  by 
the  Chancellor  de  THospital  for  the  reform  of  the  admin- 
istration of  justice,  of  which  de  Thou  wrote  forty  years 
later,  "It  is  now  everj^where  received  and  justice  is  ad- 
ministered according  to  its  rules  in  almost  all  the  sovereign 
courts  and  the  other  lower  jurisdictions  of  the  realm."  A 
less  successful  attempt  was  made  also  to  reform  the  corrupt 
administration  of  the  finances.^ 

The  task  of  administrative,  legal  and  financial  reforms 
Catherine  seems  to  have  left  entirely  to  I'Fospital  and  his 
associates.  She  kept  in  her  own  hands  the  task  of  recon- 
ciling the  quarrels  between  the  leading  families  of  the 
French  nobility.  It  was  the  sort  of  thing  for  which  she 
was  best  fitted,  but  it  was  terribly  difficult.  There  were 
rumors  before  the  Assembly  met  that  the  Huguenot  leaders 
were  calling  upon  large  numbers  of  their  friends  to  come 
to  Moulins  and  strict  rules  were  laid  down  to  avoid  trouble. 
Gentlemen  were  forbidden  under  any  circumstances  "to  put 
a  hand  to  their  swords  in  the  city."  No  page  or  lackey 
was  to  wear  either  sword  or  dagger  under  penalty  of  a 
whipping  for  the  page  and  the  estrapade  for  the  lackey. 

*De  Thou,  III,  660.  663.    B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  109,  Cal.  F.  1566,  p.  187. 

337 


338  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Every  house  must  show  at  night  a  lighted  lantern  and 
nobody  could  walk  the  streets  without  a  light.^ 

Catherine  arranged  that  the  Admiral  and  Cardinal  Lor- 
raine should  have  rooms  in  the  same  house  and  told  them 
that  each  was  responsible  for  the  safety  of  the  other.  This 
was  to  begin  with  the  greatest  danger;  for  the  blood  feud 
of  the  house  of  Guise  against  the  Admiral  was  the  most 
dangerous  of  all  the  quarrels  among  the  French  nobility. 
The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  on  his  arrival  made  a  speech  in 
the  royal  council.  He  said  that  as  a  man  of  the  Church 
he  did  not  wear  a  sword,  but  he  did  stand  for  the  honor  of 
a  family,  which  was  related  by  blood  or  marriage  to  a  great 
number  of  those  present  including  the  King  and  Queen 
themselves.  If  this  affair  was  concluded  without  regard  to 
the  family  honor,  it  would  not  remove  the  danger  "that  my 
brothers  and  my  nephews,  without  counting  those  who  are 
related  to  me  by  slighter  degrees  of  blood,  may  kill  the 
Admiral  wherever  they  find  him." 

As  soon  as  the  Assembly  was  convened,  accusations  of 
plots  to  assassinate  began  to  be  handed  from  one  side  to 
the  other.  The  Captain  General,  d'Andelot,  accused  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  of  attempting  to  procure  his  murder 
and  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  hotly  demanded  punishment 
for  the  slanderous  accusation.  The  Duke  of  Aumale  denied 
the  charge  of  planning  murder,  but  said  to  Catherine  and 
the  King,  "Would  to  God  that  the  Admiral  and  I  could  be 
locked  up  in  a  room  together  and  let  him  who  survives  come 
out."  Catherine  found  a  letter  on  the  threshold  of  her  door 
threatening  her  with  death  if  she  did  not  change  her  policy 
and  the  Guise  told  her  that  this  threat  was  secretly  insti- 
gated by  the  Admiral.  One  of  the  Admiral's  vassals  arrested 
by  him,  accused  the  Admiral  of  having  tried  to  hire  him  to 
kill  the  Queen  Mother.  In  reply  the  Constable,  accom- 
panied by  all  his  nephews,  appeared  before  the  royal 
council  and  demanded  and  obtained  that  the  slanderer 
should  be  publicly  broken  upon  the  wheel.    Catherine  was 

*B.  N.  It.  1724,  ib.  1725  f.  102.  314.  fds.  fr.  3207  f.  5.  ib.  3195. 


FEUDS  AND  QUARRELS  339 

skilful  enough  to  arrange,  in  this  dangerous  atmosphere, 
stately  scenes  of  reconciliation  in  the  most  notorious  of 
these  quarrels.  The  result  of  the  pressure  she  brought  to 
bear  on  both  sides,  was  that  the  widow  of  the  Duke  of  Guise 
gave  the  kiss  of  peace  to  the  Admiral  whom  she  had  accused 
of  the  murder  of  her  husband.  The  quarrel  between  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  Marshal  Montmorency  was  also 
closed  by  a  formal  scene  of  reconciliation.  The  Marshal 
expressed  his  very  great  esteem  for  the  admirable  character 
of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  Cardinal  said  that  he 
believed  the  Marshal  in  attacking  him  in  the  streets  of 
Paris  had  acted  only  from  the  very  highest  sense  of  duty.^ 
In  the  reconciliation  with  Coligny,  the  children  and 
one  of  the  brothers  of  the  dead  Duke  of  Guise  refused  to 
take  any  part  and  his  widow  carried  away  from  it  in  her 
heart  a  deadly  hatred.  Besides  these  advertised  hatreds 
there  were  cases  of  jealous  animosity  which  kept  breaking 
out  in  new  quarrels.  The  Constable  and  the  Duke  of 
Nevers  said  bitter  things  of  each  other  and  Damville  and 
the  Duke  of  Longueville  had  a  desperate  quarrel.  The 
Spanish  Ambassador  reported  to  Philip  that  the  widowed 
Duchess  of  Guise  and  the  Queen  of  Navarre  "have  black- 
guarded each  other  like  two  fish-wives,  in  the  presence  of 
the  Queen  Mother."  It  is  evident  that,  towards  the  close 
of  the  royal  conference,  there  was  a  state  of  extreme  nervous 
tension  among  those  at  Moulins.  The  Duchess  of  Ferrara 
quarreled  with  the  Queen  of  Navarre  in  open  court  and  said, 
"I  won't  kiss  as  lying  a  mouth  as  yours."  The  Admiral  and 
the  Cardinal  of  Bourbon  had  such  high  words  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  King  and  Queen,  that  the  Admiral's  brothers 
had  to  take  him  by  the  arm  and  lead  him  away,  saying, 
"Don't  quarrel  with  a  prince  of  the  blood,"  and  the  Prince 
of  Conde  when  he  heard  of  the  scene  was  so  infuriated  with 
the  Cardinal,  his  brother,  that  he  wouldn't  speak  to  him 
for  a  long  while.* 

*Cal.  F.  83;  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  19,  24,  36;  A.  N.  K.  1505  f.  17,  62,  76; 
Castelnau,  VI,  2;  Cal.  F.  1566  f.  4,  6. 

'A.  N.  K.  1508  f.  23,  ib.  1505  f.  86,  107,  112  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  22. 


340  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Amid  all  these  personal  animosities,  the  quarrel  over 
religion  and  the  struggle  between  tolerance  and  intolerance, 
found  a  dramatic  expression  in  a  wild  scene  in  full  council 
between  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  his  former  friend  and 
adherent,  Chancellor  de  I'Hospital.  For  behind  all  these 
expressions  of  personal  and  factional  hatred,  fear  and  sus- 
picion, lay  the  great  mass  of  anger  and  fear  stored  up  in 
millions  of  hearts  by  the  long  conflict  of  opposed  zeals, 
bringing  cruel  deeds,  bitter  words,  and  ever  more  intolerant 
temper.  These  broke  out  for  instance  in  the  early  summer 
of  1566  in  bloody  riots  in  the  two  neighboring  towns  of 
Pamiers  and  Foix  on  the  slopes  of  the  Pyrenees.  In  one 
the  Huguenots  killed  many  Catholics  and  drove  the  rest 
out  of  the  city  "and  the  whole  trouble  because  of  a  dance. 
At  Foix  the  Catholics  have  done  the  same."  ^ 

But  on  the  whole  it  seems  to  be  true  that,  in  spite  of 
sporadic  murder  and  riot,  the  Huguenots  and  Catholics 
were,  during  the  latter  half  of  the  year  1566  and  the  first 
part  of  the  year  1567,  seeking  a  sort  of  modus  vivendi. 
Catherine  had  every  reason  therefore  to  refuse  the  renewed 
and  pressing  advice  of  Philip  II  to  stand  by  the  agreement 
she  made  at  Bayonne  to  withdraw  the  Edict  of  Amboise  and 
issue  another  forbidding  the  exercise  of  the  Reformed  re- 
ligion. She  expressed  this  determination  in  a  royal  letter 
to  the  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid  in  language  which 
she  doubtless  expected  to  be  repeated  to  the  King  of 
Spain: 

"So  far  as  concerns  the  agreements  I  have  made  with  my 
subjects  in  regard  to  which  they  (the  Spaniards)  seem  to  be  so 
much  troubled,  after  I  have  seen  the  combats  so  many  times 
renewed,  pitched  battles,  cities  taken  by  assault,  all  to  no  profit 
except  to  ruin  me  more  and  more  and  to  make  me  lose  every 
day  the  best  of  my  subjects,  I  prefer,  by  the  advice  and  counsel 
of  my  most  faithful  servitors,  to  do  what  I  have  done  rather 
than  to  lose  the  rest  of  my  kingdom.  And  God  has  made  me 
so  happy  that,  instead  of  the  ruin  which  I  saw  threatening  me 

*  Bishop  of  Valence  qtd.  d'Aumale,  I,  380;  Arch.  C,  VI,  311. 


FEUDS  AND  QUARRELS  341 

...  I  now  live  in  repose  and  my  kingdom  is  building  up  again 
more  and  more  every  day."  ^ 

Philip,  however,  had  more  cause  than  ever  to  urge  upon 
Catherine  a  policy  of  repression  of  heresy.  The  fear  which 
had  so  long  haunted  him,  that  flourishing  heresy  in  France 
would  make  trouble  in  the  richest  of  all  his  dominions,  the 
Netherlands,  was  now  realized.  Charles  V,  whose  inher- 
itance from  his  maternal  and  his  paternal  grandfather  had 
definitely  united  the  Netherlands  to  the  crown  of  Spain, 
understood  the  Flemings  because  he  had  been  brought  up 
among  them.  He  had  been  able  to  accommodate  himself 
to  their  temper,  at  once  practical,  fond  of  pleasure  and 
proud  of  certain  liberties.  His  son,  Philip  II,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  been  brought  up  in  Spain  and  was  a  true  Spaniard 
— cautious,  self-restrained,  careful  of  expense  and  the  very 
incarnation  of  that  intense  national  pride  which  saw  in 
the  Spanish  people  the  chosen  instrument  of  God  to  make 
true  religion  and  real  civilization  dominant  in  the  world  and 
to  do  it  by  force  of  arms, — the  point  of  view  which  made 
the  Spaniard  see  in  the  soldier  a  personage  so  honorable 
as  to  be  almost  sacred.  Philip  at  once  began  to  replace 
the  native  nobility,  through  whom  his  father  had  to  a  large 
extent  governed  the  Netherlands,  by  Spaniards.  He  neg- 
lected the  Estates  General  which  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  frequently  meeting.  When  they  demanded  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Spanish  troops  who  had  been  brought  there 
because  of  the  war  with  France,  he  first  gave  a  promise  to 
withdraw  them  within  four  months  and  then,  eighteen 
months  later,  reluctantly  summoned  them  home.  These 
things  made  him  exceedingly  unpopular  when  he  left  the 
Netherlands  for  the  last  time  in  the  year  1559.  He  made 
his  illegitimate  sister,  Margaret  of  Parma,  Governor,  but 
she  had  neither  the  power  nor  the  ability  to  allay  the  dis- 
content and  five  years  later  the  nobles  of  the  royal  council 
of  the  Netherlands  compelled  Philip  to  withdraw  from  the 

*  Letts.  Ill,  13,  note,  qtd.  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  10751. 


342  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Netherlands  his  chief  minister  upon  whom  he  had  the 
largest  reliance. 

Meanwhile  the  new  heretical  opinions  had  been  spread- 
ing rapidly,  chiefly  by  means  of  Calvinist  books  and  preach- 
ers. Ten  years  before  his  abdication,  Charles  V,  by  means 
of  a  series  of  edicts  known  as  The  Placards,  had  tried  to 
purge  the  Netherlands  of  heresy  by  drastic  persecution. 
Philip  sharpened  and  continued  his  father's  policy  in  regard 
to  religion.  He  used  the  methods  of  widespread  spying 
which  were  giving  the  inquisition  of  Spain  so  terrible  a 
name  and  he  excited  the  suspicion  that  he  intended  to  intro- 
duce that  institution  into  the  Netherlands.  In  addition  he 
proposed  to  create  a  new  and  more  orthodox  university  and 
to  erect  new  bishoprics.  These  measures  excited  discontent, 
not  only  among  heretics  but  also  among  the  orthodox,  on  the 
grounds  that  they  were  an  interference  with  the  privileges 
of  the  Church  and  the  liberty  of  the  Estates  of  the  Nether- 
lands and  this  sort  of  opposition  was  very  much  deepened 
by  the  proclamation  by  royal  edict  of  the  conclusions  of 
the  Council  of  Trent.  These  many  causes  of  discontent 
finally  brought  into  being  an  association  amongst  some  of 
the  nobles  of  the  Netherlands  whose  object  was  an  orderly 
protest  against  this  policy  of  the  government,  which  seemed 
to  be  an  exercise  of  absolute  power  which  they  did  not 
believe  the  King  of  Spain  rightfully  possessed  in  the  Nether- 
lands. Philip  replied  to  it  that  he  intended  to  come  to 
the  Netherlands  himself  the  following  spring,  and  mean- 
while he  agreed  to  modify  his  policy.  When  he  made 
these  concessions,  he  solemnly  declared  in  secret  in  the 
presence  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  and  two  doctors  of  theology 
that  his  promise  of  pardon  to  all  concerned  in  this  petition 
was  not  binding  upon  him  because  it  had  been  forced  and 
that  he  proposed  to  punish  everybody  who  had  wronged 
either  religion  or  his  own  sovereignty.^ 

The  news  of  these  concessions  was  followed,  in  Flanders, 
Holland  and  four  other  provinces  of  the  Netherlands,  by  a 

*  Gossart. 


FEUDS  AND  QUARRELS  343 

very  rapid  increase  in  the  number  of  heretical  services  held 
in  the  open  air,  and  not  long  after  there  was,  from  one  end 
of  the  Netherlands  to  the  other,  an  outburst  of  that  mob 
hysteria  known  as  iconoclasm.  Small  bands  of  men,  while 
the  police  and  inhabitants  looked  on,  sacked  and  destroyed 
all  the  ornaments  of  the  churches.  Nothing  was  stolen,  but 
rich  carvings,  statues,  pictures,  tombs,  baptismal  fonts,  all 
went  down  in  ruins.  Many  of  the  nobles  who  had  been 
engaged  in  the  earlier  protests  against  the  policy  of  the 
government,  were  displeased  not  only  because  of  the  element 
of  mob  violence,  but  also  because  it  made  the  movement 
seem  one  in  favor  chiefly  of  a  change  in  religion.^ 

Philip  had  all  along  known  that  the  discontent  of  the 
Netherlands  was  encouraged  by  the  Huguenots.  Catherine 
offered  to  issue  a  proclamation  forbidding  all  Frenchmen 
to  enter  the  Netherlands  and  calling  home  within  fifteen 
days,  under  pain  of  death,  all  there,  but  the  Spaniards  sus- 
pected her  sincerity  and  Granvelle  wrote  from  Rome  to 
Philip  II,  "The  more  the  Queen  Mother  shows  a  desire  to 
use  her  good  oflBices  in  this  matter,  the  less  she  ought  to  be 
trusted."  This  fear  and  knowledge  of  the  influence  of  the 
Huguenots  in  the  Netherlands  was  the  strongest  motive  for 
Philip's  constant  pressure  upon  Catherine  to  suppress 
heresy,  as  he  was  secretly  resolved  to  repress  it,  by  the 
sword.  As  early  as  1561  this  insistence  had  drawn,  in  the 
voice  of  the  infant  King,  these  words  from  Catherine  and 
the  royal  council,  which  the  French  Ambassador  at  Madrid 
passed  on  to  the  King  of  Spain :  "Let  no  one  wish  to  give 
the  law  to  me  about  a  thing  in  which  I  recognize  no  master 
but  God:  that  is  to  say,  the  government  of  this  kingdom 
and  the  management  of  my  state."  ^ 

Philip  was  now  collecting  a  powerful  army  under  the 
command  of  the  Duke  of  Alva,  in  order  to  apply  to  the 
Netherlands  the  policy  of  terror,  but  when  he  asked  per- 
mission for  his  army  to  pass  through  France,  Catherine 

'  Letts.  II,  385. 

*  Granvelle  (2),  I,  183,  411;  Letts.  I,  367,  377,  611;  ib.  II,  382,  ctd. 
note,  385  ctd.  n. 


344  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

refused  to  grant  it.  In  the  spring  of  1566  she  had  received 
news  of  an  event  which  raised  her  latent  fear  and  suspicion 
of  PhiHp  II  to  a  flaming  anger  she  could  not  suppress. 

Ever  since  1562  the  French  Government  had  been  mak- 
ing attempts  to  establish  colonies  in  what  is  now  the 
southern  part  of  the  United  States,  and  the  second  and  third 
expeditions  in  1564  and  1565  built  a  fort  on  the  coast  of 
Florida.  Under  pressure  of  famine,  the  members  of  the 
second  expedition  had  revolted  against  their  leader,  seized 
two  ships  and  committed  extensive  piracies  on  the  Spanish 
settlements  in  the  island  of  Cuba.  Although  the  leader  of 
the  expedition  subsequently  executed  some  of  the  mutineers, 
it  was  not,  after  all,  very  astonishing  that  the  arrival  of  the 
third  French  expedition  was  closely  followed  by  eight 
Spanish  ships  with  orders  to  attack  and  destroy  the  new 
settlement.  The  risky  plan  of  campaign  of  the  French 
commander  and  a  terrible  tempest  which  destroyed  the 
French  fleet,  gave  the  Spaniards  a  complete  victory.  They 
used  it  with  the  utmost  cruelty.  In  spite  of  their  promise 
to  spare  the  lives  of  those  who  surrendered  they  hung  all 
their  prisoners  or  put  them  to  the  sword,  except  a  few 
seamen,  artisans,  and  pilots  whom  they  wished  to  use. 
The  French  expeditions  had  been  equipped  and  sent  out 
by  the  Admiral  Coligny  with  the  full  consent  and  knowledge 
of  Catherine.  His  object  was  a  double  one:  to  extend  the 
trade  of  France  and  to  find  an  outlet  for  Huguenot  colonists. 
The  action  of  the  Spaniards,  therefore,  was  inspired  not 
simply  by  commercial  and  national  rivalry,  but  also  by 
religious  zeal  and,  over  the  scaffolds  on  which  they  hung 
the  French  prisoners,  they  put  placards  bearing  this  in- 
scription, "Hung  not  as  Frenchmen  but  as  Lutherans." 

When  Catherine  first  heard  of  what  she  called,  "this 
atrocious  massacre  done  in  Florida,"  she  kept  quiet  about 
a  thing  "so  cruel  and  inhuman"  until  the  Spanish  Ambas- 
sador asked  audience  of  her.  He  informed  her  that  a 
commander  of  Spain,  having  found  in  Florida  some  French- 
men commissioned  from  the  Admiral  who  had  in  their 


FEUDS  AND  QUARRELS  345 

company  ministers  who  were  engaged  in  planting  the  new 
religion,  had  chastised  them  as  he  had  been  commanded  by 
the  King  his  master.  He  would  freely  confess  that  he  had 
done  this  a  little  more  cruelly  than  his  master  would  have 
desired,  but  after  all  he  couldn't  do  less  than  fall  upon  them 
as  pirates  and  people  who  were  attacking  what  belongs  to 
the  King  of  Spain.  He  added  that  the  King  his  master 
demanded  justice  upon  the  Admiral.  As  Charles  IX  was 
sick  in  bed,  Catherine  answered  at  his  request.  She  said 
that  as  the  common  mother  she  could  not  help  feeling 
an  unbelievable  pain  at  the  heart  to  hear  that  so  ter- 
rible a  slaughter  had  been  committed  upon  the  subjects  of 
her  son.  There  was  no  reason  for  trying  to  cover  such  a 
deed  by  an  allusion  to  the  Admiral,  because  it  might  be 
assumed  that  so  large  a  number  of  people  had  not  been 
allowed  to  leave  the  kingdom  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
King,  who  thought  commerce  and  navigation  everywhere 
free  to  his  subjects.  It  seemed  to  her  that  there  was  an 
attempt  to  put  a  bridle  in  the  mouth  of  her  son,  to  close 
him  up  in  his  kingdom  and  to  clip  his  wings.  Thanks  to 
God  he  was  better  obeyed  than  he  ever  was  and  it  would 
not  be  difficult  for  him  to  make  those  who  wished  him  ill 
know  that  he  had  no  less  means  to  defend  himself  than 
his  predecessors.  When  the  Ambassador  harked  back 
again  to  the  Admiral  and  the  presence  of  ministers  of  the 
new  religion,  Catherine  answered  that  she  could  wish  that 
all  the  Huguenots  would  go  to  that  country,  which  "belongs 
to  us."  He  was  forcing  her  to  believe  that  Spain  did  not 
want  quiet  in  France.  But  however  that  may  be,  it  was 
none  "of  their  business  to  punish  our  subjects  and  we  are 
not  disputing  whether  they  were  or  were  not  of  the  new 
religion,  but  rather  talking  about  the  murder  which  the 
Spaniards  have  committed  upon  them."  ^ 

Even  in  the  midst  of  this  undissembled  anger,  Cath- 
erine's ruling  passion  for  the  marriages  of  her  children  did 
not  cease.    She  added  to  this  indignant  letter  to  her  Ambas- 

*  Letts.  II,  353. 


346  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

sador  a  postscript  which  showed  she  hoped  to  make  profit 
out  of  the  situation.  "I  cannot  help  telling  you  that  al- 
though some  of  the  greatest  marriages  in  Christendom  are 
offered  for  the  King  my  son,  the  chief  regret  I  have  is  that 
it  will  be  necessary  in  the  end,  because  of  this  wrong,  for 
him  to  take  as  a  wife  someone  who  is  not  of  our  religion; 
a  thing  we  will  not  do  except  in  the  last  extremity."  Philip 
never  gave  any  real  heed  to  this  indignation  about  the 
massacre  in  Florida.  He  expressed  indeed  some  vague, 
formal  regret,  but  France  could  never  get  from  him  any 
satisfaction  except  the  release  of  the  few  survivors.  What 
he  really  thought  is  shown  by  the  comment  he  wrote  on  the 
margin  of  the  report  of  the  commander  of  the  expedition: 
"Tell  him  so  far  as  those  killed  are  concerned,  that  he  did 
well;  and  let  those  he  spared  be  sent  to  the  galleys."  ^ 

Catherine's  anger  was  shared  by  nearly  all  Frenchmen. 
The  Spanish  Ambassador  wrote  a  year  after  the  massacre, 
"I  am  told  by  a  nobleman  of  importance  that  the  Queen  and 
her  counsellors  are  ready  to  weep  with  vexation  that  the 
King  cannot  get  satisfaction  for  the  great  injury  done  him 
in  Florida.  They  would  sooner  wreck  this  entire  kingdom 
than  not  get  vengeance  for  it.  The  Cardinal  of  Bourbon 
offers  two  years'  income  and  most  of  the  Catholics  would 
make  similar  offers.  Your  Majesty  may  guess  what  the 
heretics  would  do."  When,  about  two  years  later,  a  certain 
Dominic  de  Gourges,  a  Cathohc  and  a  Guisard,  raised  a 
small  expedition  containing  Huguenots  and  Catholic  volun- 
teers, crossed  the  ocean,  stormed  the  Spanish  fort  and  hung 
his  prisoners  under  a  placard  reading,  "Done  not  to  Span- 
iards nor  to  seamen,  but  to  traitors,  robbers  and  murderers," 
all  France,  Catholic  and  Huguenot  alike,  rejoiced.^ 

Catherine  was  not,  therefore,  very  much  disposed  to 
allow  the  King  of  Spain  to  send  the  Duke  of  Alva  and  the 
Spanish  troops  through  France  on  their  way  to  the  Nether- 
lands. But  she  covered  her  own  fears  under  other  specious 
reasons.    She  pointed  out  that  the  passage  of  the  Spanish 

'  Doiiais,  I  (2)  Int.  XVI. 

*A.  N.  K.  1507  f.  106,  Gaffarel,  de  Thou,  Lowry,  Arch.  C,  VI,  73. 


FEUDS  AND  QUARRELS  347 

army  would  arouse  in  those  of  the  new  religion  such  "fright 
as  might  light  a  fire  hard  to  put  out."  It  was  impossible 
to  have  them  pass  secretly  through  the  mountainous  parts 
of  France  because  of  the  lack  of  bridges  and  of  provisions. 
To  build  bridges  and  collect  provisions  would  take  three 
months  and  give  everybody  warning  of  what  was  going  on. 
While  if  the  Duke  of  Alva  should  try  to  go  secretly  through 
the  Kingdom  without  a  guard  of  at  least  two  hundred  men, 
he  would  run  great  danger  of  being  killed  by  the  Hugue- 
nots.^ 

Catherine's  correspondence  makes  evident  that  her  atti- 
tude from  the  fall  of  1566  on  was  one  of  the  most  anxious 
attention  to  every  move  of  Spain.  She  had  no  intention 
of  attacking  Spain,  but  she  did  proceed  to  arm  the  kingdom 
for  defense.  She  had  the  more  reason  to  do  this  because 
the  Emperor  had  just  made  peace  with  the  Turks  and  she 
was  afraid  he  would  turn  his  attention  to  the  recovery  of 
Metz,  Toul  and  Verdun  conquered  from  the  Empire  and 
added  to  France  by  Henry  11.  She  proceeded  therefore  to 
put  in  order  the  fortresses  on  the  northern  border,  and 
began  in  October  1566  to  raise  two  small  bands  of  Swiss 
to  reinforce  the  garrisons  of  Lyons  and  Grenoble.  Six 
weeks  later  she  decided  to  levy  a  body  of  six  thousand  Swiss 
guards.  She  wrote  to  her  Ambassador  in  Switzerland  that 
the  King  was  doing  this  for  the  good  of  Christendom  and 
because  it  was  reasonable  that  he  should  attend  with  more 
surety  what  use  may  be  made  of  the  large  military  forces 
which  were  being  prepared  in  so  many  places.  But  she 
had  another  reason  for  making  this  levy  besides  the  osten- 
sible one.  She  had  found  out  that  the  King  of  Spain  was 
endeavoring  to  make  a  levy  of  mercenary  troops  among  the 
Swiss.  France  and  many  of  the  cantons  of  Switzerland  had 
been  bound  together  by  a  defensive  alliance  ever  since  the 
year  1516.  This  had  been  renewed  by  each  succeeding 
King  since  Francis  I,  and  the  Swiss  were  bound  to 
provide,   whenever   asked,   not   less   than   six   nor   more 

*  Letts.  II,  408,  n.  407;  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  110. 


348  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

than  sixteen  thousand  infantry  to  be  paid  by  France.  As 
a  pledge  of  this  "eternal  peace  the  King  of  France  promises 
to  pay  to  each  of  the  thirteen  cantons  included  in  it  two 
thousand  francs  every  year  of  peace."  Catherine  was  per- 
fectly wise  in  regarding  this  treaty  as  one  of  the  corner 
stones  of  the  military  independence  of  France,  and  the 
secret  attempts  of  Spain  to  break  it  in  spirit  by  raising  a 
force  of  picked  Swiss  troops,  filled  her  with  perfectly  reason- 
able alarm.  She  repeatedly  wrote  to  her  ambassador  to  do 
everything  in  his  power  to  check  "these  practices,"  and  to 
use  the  levy  by  France  as  the  best  means  of  doing  so.  The 
Swiss,  who  were  also  disquieted  by  the  passage  of  the  great 
Spanish  army  along  their  borders,  very  willingly  acknowl- 
edged their  treaty  obligations,  and  the  Protestant  canton 
of  Zurich,  which  was  not  included  in  the  league,  and  Berne, 
which  had  protested  about  the  levy  against  the  Huguenots 
in  1562,  allowed  its  citizens  to  join  the  French  force  after 
the  royal  commissioners  had  made  a  written  acknowledg- 
ment of  their  statement  that  the  agreement  was  not  binding 
if  those  in  France  "who  are  of  the  evangelic  profession  are 
molested  or  persecuted."  ^ 

Catherine  was  embarrassed  at  the  beginning  of  her 
negotiations  by  the  fact  that  part  of  the  wages  of  the  Swiss 
who  had  fought  five  years  before  in  the  battle  of  Dreux  had 
not  yet  been  paid.  She  wrote  to  her  ambassador  that  she 
had  examined  the  muster  rolls  made  out  just  before  the 
battle  and  that  she  does  not  send  them  (as  he  asks)  for  a 
guide  in  concluding  the  bargain,  "because  they  show  more 
men  were  actually  in  the  ranks  than  the  orders  for  payment 
show"  and  therefore,  if  she  should  send  them,  the  Swiss 
would  probably  not  lower  their  demand  but  rather  increase 
it.  The  best  thing  for  him  to  do  was,  after  dragging  out  a 
long  series  of  excuses  about  waiting  for  the  payrolls,  "to 
make  of  it  une  cotte  mal  taillee  with  them  and  agree  to  pay 
the  smallest  price  you  can."  ^ 

^B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  86.  87;  Lette.  Ill,  5,  8.  10;  X,  182,  187,  188,  180,  192, 
200,  207,  208,  Gobat,  30,  3  Jan.,  1566. 
•Letts.  X,  85. 


FEUDS  AND  QUARRELS  349 

When  the  rebellion  in  the  Netherlands  had  subsided  and 
Spain  still  persisted  in  sending  a  very  large  force 
north,  the  suspicion  at  the  French  court  increased.  There 
was  more  than  one  man  who  found  it  difficult  to  speak  of 
these  preparations  in  any  other  way  except  as  "getting 
ready  to  come  and  trouble  the  kingdom  of  France."  Cath- 
erine had  already  authorized  d'Andelot,  Captain  General  of 
French  infantry,  to  fill  some  of  his  bands  up  to  war  strength, 
and  in  the  end  of  June  she  summoned  Conde  and  the  other 
Huguenots  to  join  a  general  council  to  decide  what  was  to  be 
done.  Quarrels  among  the  nobles  made  military  prepara- 
tions difficult.  When  d'Andelot  wished  to  inspect  the  bor- 
der province  of  Champagne,  according  to  the  duty  of  his 
rank,  the  Governor  sent  him  word  that  he  need  not  trouble 
to  visit  the  garrisons  there  and  a  little  later  two  of  his 
colonels  actually  refused  to  obey  his  orders.^ 

The  week  before  the  meeting  of  the  royal  council,  the 
principal  Huguenot  nobles  and  gentlemen  had  met 
at  the  town  of  Valery  for  the  baptism  of  the  infant 
of  the  Prince  of  Conde.  The  King  was  god-father,  but, 
because  the  baptism  was  held  according  to  the  Reformed 
ceremony,  the  Admiral  actually  held  the  child  at  the  font. 
There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  this  meeting  produced 
among  the  Huguenots  any  talk  in  regard  to  civil  war,  but 
rather  there  was  considerable  discussion  about  the  possi- 
bilities of  a  war  with  Spain.  There  was  a  rumor,  however, 
at  the  court  that  the  Huguenots  were  arming  for  civil  war.^ 

When  the  royal  council  assembled  the  Huguenots  in  it 
were  all  for  war  with  Spain,  as  the  best  remedy  for  civil 
discord ;  indeed  they  had  urged  this  for  some  time.  Conde, 
who  at  his  brother's  death  had  been  promised  the  lieu- 
tenant-generalship of  France,  very  much  angered  that  this 
promise  had  not  been  kept,  now  made  the  suggestion  that 
the  Constable,  who  was  advanced  in  years,  would  probably, 

*Pntd.  d'Aumale  App.  I,  383;  Cal.  F.  1567,  p.  269;  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  27, 
135. 

•D'Aumale,  pntd.  App.  383. 


350  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

for  the  good  of  France,  be  willing  to  resign  the  sword  of 
Constable,  which  might  then  be  given  to  him.  The  Con- 
stable did  not  agree  to  this  suggestion  and  Conde  left  court 
visibly  in  a  bad  humor. ^  The  King's  sixteen-year-old 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  resented  very  much  this  ambi- 
tion of  Conde  and  made  a  scene  which  Brantome  remem- 
bered with  great  vividness.  The  Prince  took  Conde  into  a 
corner  of  the  room  after  supper  and  talked  to  him  very 
earnestly.  What  he  said  could  not  be  heard,  "but  we  could 
see  that  the  young  Prince  was  very  angry,  now  playing  with 
the  hilt  of  his  sword,  now  touching  his  dagger,  now  pulling 
his  hat  tight  on  and  now  taking  it  off  again,  and  all  with  an 
angry  and  proud  countenance."  It  was  easy  to  guess  what 
Anjou  was  talking  about,  he  was  telling  the  Prince  of  Conde 
that  the  supreme  military  command  in  the  kingdom  was  to 
be  kept  for  him.  It  is  not  necessary  to  assume,  as  Bran- 
tome  does,  that  the  lad  had  been  put  up  to  making  this 
angry  scene  by  his  mother.  The  restless  and  envious  ambi- 
tion which  marked  Catherine's  children,  appeared  in  them 
at  a  very  early  age.^ 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Huguenots  left  court  in  such 
discontent,  the  Spanish  Ambassador  bitterly  attacked  Cath- 
erine for  endangering  her  son's  throne  by  favoring  them  and 
planning  war  against  Spain.  At  first  she  cried  and  then  she 
laughed.  Whatever  the  Ambassador  might  say  for  its  effect 
upon  Catherine,  we  know  that  he  had  already  sent  word  to 
his  master  that  there  was  no  danger  that  she  would  make 
open  war  against  Spain  because  she  was  really  unable  to 
do  so.^ 

'Languet,  Arcana,  II,  186,  qtd.  Gossart,  I,  34;  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  126,  127; 
d'Aumale  App.  I,  385,  386. 
"Brant,  IV,  346. 
■A.  N.  K.  1508  f.  31,  ib.  30  June,  1567. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR.      THEIR  ARMY 

The  danger  was  now  shifted  from  foreign  to  civil  war. 
The  suspicions  of  the  Huguenots  were  aroused  and  they 
began  to  fear  that  all  these  preparations  had  been  made 
against  them.  The  false  story  that  a  plot  to  kill  their  lead- 
ers had  been  made  between  Catherine  and  the  King  of  Spain 
at  the  Conference  of  Bayonne,  revived  with  new  vigor,  and 
the  fact  that  the  walls  of  their  strong  towns  were  being 
destroyed,  according  to  agreement,  during  the  very  months 
when  Catherine  herself  was  building  in  many  towns  citadels 
to  be  held  by  royal  garrisons,  increased  their  suspicions. 
While  murders  and  riots  against  the  Huguenots  seemed  to 
have  been  diminishing  rapidly,  the  list  of  those  which  had 
already  taken  place  since  the  Edict  was  a  formidable  one, 
and  about  a  dozen  of  the  principal  noblemen  of  the  party 
held  meetings  to  consider  the  question  of  renewing  the  civil 
war.  At  the  first  two  of  these  meetings  it  was  decided, 
largely  by  the  influence  of  the  Admiral,  not  to  take  up 
arms.^ 

Meanwhile  warning  that  something  was  on  foot  came 
from  a  nobleman,  Michel  de  Castelnau,  sent  on  a  mission  to 
the  Duke  of  Alva.  He  returned  in  company  with  some  old 
soldiers  who  had  once  been  under  him  and  he  thought  their 
talk  very  suspicious.  When  he  reported  the  matter  to  the 
Queen,  the  Constable  refused  to  believe  it  and  the  Chan- 
cellor said  he  ought  to  be  punished  for  arousing  suspicion 
between  the  King  and  his  subjects.  But  when  word  arrived 
from  the  south  that  an  unusual  number  of  gentlemen  were 
riding  through  the  country  and  traveling  by  post,  Catherine 
sent  for  Castelnau  into  her  own  cabinet  and  he  persuaded 

*  La  Pop.  XI,  p.  4. 

351 


352  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

her  to  send  one  of  his  brothers  towards  the  Admiral's  coun- 
try seat  in  order  to  find  out  what  was  going  on. 

A  similar  warning  had  been  sent  up  earlier  by  Monluc 
from  the  south.  These  warnings,  however,  were  inaccurate 
and  based  fully  as  much  on  suspicion  as  upon  information, 
as  the  following  letter  of  the  4th  of  September  shows: 

"To  My  Cousin,  Monsieur  de  Cosse,  Marechal  op  France: 
"My  Cousin: 

"We  have  been  informed  that  near  Montargis  and  Chatillon 
(the  Admiral's  castle)  there  is  the  commencement  of  a  gathering 
of  armed  forces  which  at  the  present  amount  to  twelve  or  fifteen 
hundred  horsemen.  I  don't  believe  it,  although  there  are  plenty 
of  rumors  coming  in  from  other  parts  of  some  movement  on  foot 
for  which  there  is  no  reason.  But  in  order  to  get  at  the  truth 
of  what's  going  on  in  your  part  of  the  country  I  have  thought 
it  best  to  send  you  this  messenger  in  all  haste  to  beg  you  to  take 
the  trouble  to  find  out  and  to  tell  me  at  once  the  truth." 

On  the  10th  of  September  Catherine  wrote  again  to  the 
Marshal  acknowledging  his  report  that  he  had  sent  to  the 
places  indicated  and  had  found  nothing  there.  The  day 
before  the  Huguenot  chiefs,  a  dozen  in  number,  had  decided 
at  the  Admiral's  chateau  that  on  the  28th  of  September 
they  would  suddenly  rise  in  arms  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom 
in  order  to  do  three  things:  surprise  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant cities;  seize  the  person  of  the  King  and  his  mother; 
attack  the  new  Swiss  guard  and  cut  it  to  pieces.^ 

How  little  Catherine  was  thinking  about  any  danger  at 
this  time  is  sufficiently  shown  by  the  following  letter  which 
she  wrote  on  the  9th  of  September: 

"Monsieur  de  Villeroy: 

"I  have  been  informed  by  the  Abbe  Saint  Serge  that  the 
masons  are  working  very  hard  on  the  walls  and  defenses  of  the 
city  of  Paris  at  the  place  where  my  garden  is,  just  at  the  spot 
where  the  watercourse  must  pass  for  the  fountain  for  which  I 
have  drawn  the  water  from  Saint  Cloud.  ...  I  wish  to  write 
you  the  present  letter  and  to  ask  you  to  have  made  an  arch  and 

*  Letts.  Ill,  56,  57,  De  la  Noue. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     353 

an  opening,  twelve  feet  broad,  which  can  be  locked  with  a  key 
and  that  on  the  side  of  the  arch  there  may  be  very  stout  walls 
and  vaults  as  long  as  the  ramparts  are  broad  and  of  the  height 
and  style  which  the  Abbe  of  Saint  Serge  will  show  to  the  work- 
men." 

She  further  asks  that  on  the  other  side  there  should  be 
an  opening  direct  from  the  river  into  the  canals  of  her 
garden.^ 

Not  long  before  the  appointed  day,  indeed,  Catherine 
received  another  warning  which  attracted  her  attention  and 
she  sent  the  Admiral's  cousin  to  his  castle  at  Chatillon, 
ostensibly  to  invite  him  to  come  to  court,  but  really  to  find 
out  what  he  was  doing.  He  found  the  great  chieftain 
dressed  as  a  laborer  and  superintending  the  gathering  of  his 
vintage.  Catherine  was  completely  thrown  off  her  guard 
and  on  the  18th  of  September  she  wrote  to  her  Ambassador 
in  Madrid,  "There  have  been  some  reports,  without  any 
foundation,  that  those  of  the  Reformed  religion  wanted  to 
make  trouble,  but  it  is  nothing  but  a  little  alarm  on  their 
part  and  the  whole  thing  has  now  disappeared."  ^ 

If  anything  was  needed  to  confirm  the  Huguenots  in 
their  resolution  to  rise — a  resolution  largely  caused  by  fear 
and  the  desire  to  strike  first — it  was  the  news  which  reached 
France  soon  after  the  middle  of  September  of  the  arrest  of 
two  of  the  chief  nobles  of  the  Netherlands,  Counts  Egmont 
and  Horn.  Both  the  treacherous  way  in  which  this  arrest 
was  carried  out  in  the  midst  of  festivals  and  mutual  cour- 
tesies and  the  evident  intention  of  railroading  them  to  the 
scaffold,  .was  to  the  Huguenot  leaders  a  striking  confirma- 
tion of  their  worst  fears  that  they  might  be  treated  in  the 
same  way.  Catherine  told  the  Spanish  Ambassador  she 
meant  to  imitate  this  example,  but  he  thought  she  was  only 
trying  to  fool  him  and  wrote  to  his  master,  "The  Queen 
has  shown  great  signs  of  joy  over  what  has  happened,  and 
sent  word  to  me  that  they  ought  to  have  done  days  ago 

*  Letts.  X,  214. 

'Pasquier,  V,  L.  2;  d'Aubigne,  III,  284.    Letts,  III,  58. 


354  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

what  the  Duke  had  now  done  and  that  in  a  short  time  she 
would  have  things  to  tell  me  which  would  give  me  great 
pleasure.  These  words  however  don't  arouse  very  much 
enthusiasm  in  me."  Indeed  the  suspicion  in  the  Huguenot 
mind  that  Catherine  had  arranged  a  plot  against  them  with 
the  aid  of  the  Spanish  army,  was  entirely  false.  The  dis- 
patches of  Alva  show  that,  far  from  being  in  league  with 
Catherine,  neither  he  nor  his  master  trusted  her  in  the 
least.  They  were  always  accusing  her  of  showing  too  much 
favor  to  the  Huguenots  and  the  best  they  were  disposed  to 
hope  for  was  that  she  would  keep  a  somewhat  middle  posi- 
tion between  the  two  parties.^ 

That  this  was  at  the  moment  her  definite  intention  is 
plain  from  her  correspondence  and  conduct.  But  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  of  her  many  conversations  which  have 
been  recorded  for  us — a  conversation  which  must  have 
taken  place  within  a  few  months  of  this  time — lets  us  look 
into  the  depths  of  her  mind,  below  intention,  almost  below 
definite  consciousness,  where  people  keep  vague  future  pos- 
sibilities with  which  they  play  in  secret  moments.  Giovanni 
Correro,  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  Venetian  Ambassadors, 
with  whom  Catherine  was  on  very  confidential  terms,  told 
the  Venetian  Senate  how  she  said  to  him  one  day  that 

"she  would  think  herself  the  most  unlucky  woman  in  the  world 
if  among  all  the  Queens  of  France  she  was  the  only  one  to  whom 
such  troubles  had  come.  It  was  a  consolation  to  her  that  during 
the  minorities  of  French  kings  the  nobles  had  always  been 
rebellious.  On  the  way  to  Bayonne  she  had  read  at  Carcassonne 
a  manuscript  history  which  told  about  the  mother  of  St.  Louis 
(IX),  left  a  widow  with  a  son  eleven  years  old,  and  how  the 
nobles  had  risen  in  arms  objecting  to  the  rule  of  a  woman  and 
a  foreigner  at  that.  To  accomplish  their  ends,  they  had  united 
with  the  Albigensian  heretics,  who,  like  those  of  her  day,  did  not 
want  priests,  monks,  masses,  images  in  the  churches,  etc.  They 
also  called  in  a  King  of  Aragon  to  help  them  and  it  was  neces- 
sary to  meet  them  in  a  pitched  battle.  Toulouse,  their  strong- 
hold, was  dismantled  and  finally,  by  the  suggestion  of  the  Queen, 
a  peace  was  made  conceding  many  of  their  demands.    However, 

*  A.  N.  K.   1508  f .  60  and  passim. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     355 

the  King,  grown  strong  with  the  lapse  of  time  and  by  the  counsels 
of  his  mother,  finally  took  that  vengeance  on  his  rebels  which 
they  deserved.  Then  she  showed  how  all  these  details  matched 
her  own  situation.  She  was  a  widow  and  a  foreigner  with  no 
one  to  trust  and  a  son  eleven  years  old.  The  nobles  had  risen 
under  pretext  of  religion  but  really  against  her  government,  call- 
ing in  the  Queen  of  England  and  the  Germans  to  help  them. 
There  was  war,  victory,  and  Orleans  taken  and  dismantled,  like 
Toulouse.  Peace  was  made  by  her  advice,  to  the  advantage  of 
the  Huguenots.  She  confessed  she  had  granted  them  the  advan- 
tage, hoping  to  gain  by  time  what  she  could  not  gain  by  arms 
without  great  bloodshed.  At  this  point  I  said,  'Madam,  Your 
Majesty,  ought  to  draw  consolation  from  these  facts  which  are 
not  only  a  picture  of  the  events  of  your  day  but  a  prophecy  of 
their  final  outcome  (I  alluded  to  the  punishment) .'  She  laughed 
very  loudly  (as  she  does  whenever  she  hears  something  which 
pleases  her)  and  answered:  'I  should  not  want  anybody  to  know 
I  had  read  that  chronicle  for  they  would  say  that  I  am  imitating 
that  good  lady  and  Queen,  Blanche,  who  was  a  daughter  of  the 
King  of  Castile.'  "  ^ 

So  far  as  this  remarkable  betrayal  of  her  inmost  thought 
in  an  expansive  moment  shows  any  definite  intention — and 
psychologically  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  give  it  too  definite 
form  as  an  intent — it  was  a  purpose  whose  execution  was 
far  in  the  future  and  it  required  for  its  success  a  long  inter- 
val of  conciliation  and  the  disarming  of  suspicions.  It 
seems  very  strange  that  Catherine  did  not  see  that  what 
she  was  doing  tended  in  the  exactly  opposite  direction  and 
was  apt  to  arouse  the  Huguenots'  suspicion,  or  that  she 
could  fail  to  understand  how  certain  they  would  be,  if  they 
felt  themselves  pushed  to  the  wall,  to  do  precisely  what 
they  did  do.  The  truth  is  that  Catherine  was  apt  to  fall 
into  the  mistake  of  trying  to  play  too  fine  a  game — to  use 
one  of  her  own  phrases,  "to  swim  between  two  waters." 
She  had  tried  to  make  Spain  think  that  she  intended  to 
revoke  the  Edict  of  Pacification  and  banish  heresy  from 
France.  She  did  not  long  deceive  Spain,  but  she  did  deceive 
the  Huguenots  and  the  result  of  her  efforts  to  trick  Philip 

*  Rel.  I,  4,  p.  180. 


356  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

was  the  second  Huguenot  war.  This  was  indeed  a  most 
unfortunate  result,  for  the  indications  are  that  the  peace 
was  gaining  in  stability  and  there  was  a  chance  that  it 
might  become  permanent.  This  is  the  opinion  of  de  la 
None,  one  of  the  bravest  and  the  wisest  of  the  Huguenot 
captains.  He  wrote  afterwards,  "Concord,  good  conduct 
and  obedience  to  law  had  already  made  such  progress  among 
the  mass  of  the  French  people,  that  France  was  entirely 
recovered  from  the  waste  of  civil  war."  * 

When  the  Huguenots  rose  in  arms  they  failed  in  all 
three  of  their  chief  objects.  The  date  of  their  rising  had 
been  fixed  for  the  eve  of  St.  Michel,  the  28th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1567.  They  quietly  gathered  a  body  of  nobles  not  far 
from  the  court  in  order  to  seize  the  King,  but  on  the  25th  of 
September,  Catherine  took  alarm  and  sent  word  for  the 
Swiss  guards,  who  were  camped  ten  miles  off,  to  join  them 
at  once.  They  set  out  at  midnight  and  arrived  the  next 
morning  at  the  walled  city  of  Meaux,  where  the  court  had 
hastily  taken  refuge.  After  two  days  of  hesitation,  it  was 
decided  by  the  royal  council  that  it  was  better  for  the 
King  to  retreat  to  Paris  and  they  started  out  at  midnight 
the  day  before  the  Huguenot  attack  had  been  planned.  The 
gentlemen  of  the  court  were  without  armor  and  most  of 
them  rode,  not  their  war  horses,  but  hackneys.  The  bat- 
talion of  the  Swiss  surrounded  them  in  hollow  square  for- 
mation and  the  train  was  halfway  to  Paris  before  the  first 
Huguenots  appeared,  probably  not  over  a  thousand  horse- 
men, because  they  did  not  expect  their  full  forces  until  the 
next  day.  When  they  threatened  to  charge  the  Swiss  closed 
up,  lowered  their  pikes,  fell  upon  one  knee  and  called  on 
God  to  help  them  according  to  their  usual  custom  and  then 
rose  to  charge.  The  Constable,  who  was  in  command  of  the 
retreat,  stopped  the  charge  and  ordered  everybody  to  stand 
upon  the  defensive.  He  was  pushing  forward  with  all 
possible  speed  to  pass  a  certain  narrow  ford  where  he  feared 
that  fifteen  hundred  Huguenot  harquebusiers  of  whose  ar- 

*De  la  Noue,  706;  Segesser,  I,  449.    B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  142. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     357 

rival  in  the  neighborhood  his  spies  had  told  him,  might  block 
his  passage.  The  ford  was  passed  in  safety  and  the  retreat 
was  assured.  Whenever  the  Swiss  were  threatened  the 
square  "stood  like  a  furious  wild  boar  pursued  by  the 
hounds."  The  Huguenot  gentry,  most  of  whom  lacked 
heavy  armor,  could  not,  so  long  as  the  phalanx  stood  firm, 
ride  into  the  mass  of  fifteen  to  eighteen  foot  pikes  bristling 
rank  on  rank.  The  King  and  his  mother  arrived  at  Paris 
"tired  and  hungry"  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.^ 

The  day  after  Catherine  briefly  described  what  had  oc- 
curred in  a  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Ferrara. 

"My  Cousin: 

"By  the  letter  which  the  King  my  son  is  writing  to  you 
presently  you  will  hear  the  reason  of  our  distress,  which  is  of 
such  a  nature  that  I  never  could  have  thought  that  so  large  and 
unhappy  a  design  could  have  entered  into  the  minds  of  subjects 
in  regard  to  their  King.  And  I  believe  you  will  be  no  less 
astonished  about  it  than  we  are,  when  you  recognize  that  the 
object  of  the  plot  was  the  overthrow  of  the  entire  state  and 
to  put  our  own  lives  in  danger.  But  God  is  a  just  judge  and  will 
provide  for  everything  the  remedy  that  pleases  Him." 

The  King  never  forgot  his  anger  over  this  day.  More 
than  a  year  later  he  swore  to  the  Venetian  Ambassador  he 
would  always  remember  how  the  Huguenots  drove  him 
from  Meaux,  nor  ever  again  allow  a  single  Huguenot  in  his 
household.  Catherine  was  as  much  surprised  as  angered. 
She  told  the  Venetian  Ambassador  "that  she  didn't  believe 
anything  like  it  has  ever  happened  in  the  world  before, 
because  surely  it's  a  most  astonishing  thing  that  a  huge 
kingdom  as  great  as  France  should  have  risen  in  one  day  to 
arms,  merely  on  the  rumor  that  we  were  in  the  hands  of  our 
enemies."  ^ 

The  feeling  of  the  Huguenots  was  by  this  time  very 
hostile  to  Catherine.    The  more  so  because  at  the  beginning 

*Castelnau,  I,  200;  Segesser,  I,  465;  Neg.  Tosc,  lU,  529;  Pasquier,  V, 
2,  p.  118. 

*29  Sept.,  1567,  pntd.  Douais  (1)  King's  letter  to  Duke  of  Ferrara 
Arch.  Mod.   B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  164.  312. 


358  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

of  the  first  trouble  they  had  pretty  good  ground  for  believ- 
ing that  she  would  side  with  them.  When  their  troops  took 
the  royal  chateau  of  St.  Maur  they  found  the  Queen 
Mother's  pet  dog  with  a  litter  of  six  puppies.  Before  they 
left  the  chateau  they  killed  the  mother  and  four  of  the 
puppies,  which  everybody  interpreted  as  a  sign  they  would 
like  to  kill  the  Queen  and  four  of  her  children.  The  com- 
mon interpretation  at  court  was  that  the  two  they  wanted 
to  spare  were  the  Queen  of  Spain  and  the  Duchess  of 
Lorraine.^ 

The  situation  was  a  very  serious  one.  Although  the 
Huguenots  failed  in  their  plans  to  seize  several  of  the  larger 
cities,  they  had  in  their  hands  at  the  end  of  the  first  week 
fourteen  of  the  second  importance  and  a  large  number  of 
smaller  towns.  Money  was  very  hard  to  get  and  at  the 
end  of  six  weeks  the  Huguenots  had  more  men  in  the  field 
than  the  King.  The  Constable  had  never  been  a  very 
successful  general  and  he  was  old.  The  other  most  con- 
spicuous leaders  of  the  previous  war  were  dead,  none  of 
Guise's  brothers  were  able  to  take  his  place  and  his  son 
was  too  young.  In  Monluc,  Catherine  had  a  competent 
soldier  for  managing  the  war  in  a  province  or  two,  but  his 
faults  of  character  would  have  made  it  impossible  to  put 
him  in  supreme  command.  Tavannes  was  an  excellent 
general  but  he  said  of  himself  that  he  had  neither  the 
position  nor  the  patience  to  enable  him  to  impose  peace 
upon  the  jealous  and  warring  nobles  of  the  royal  party, 
each  of  whom  was  anxious  to  get  as  much  honor  as  possible.^ 

The  King,  although  seventeen  years  of  age,  was  a  mere 
child  completely  under  the  sway  of  his  mother.  How  little 
she  or  anybody  else,  could  rely  on  his  judgment  in  this  great 
crisis,  is  plainly  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  and  his  next  oldest 
brother  signed,  at  this  very  time,  an  agreement  with  an 
alchemist  who  claimed  that  he  was  just  about  to  discover 

*B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  167,  Yen.  Amb. 

»A.  N.  K.  1506  f.  99;  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  169. 


CHARLES   IX,  SECOND  SON  OF  CATHERINE   DE  MEDICIS 

From  a  painting  in  the  Louvre  attributed  to  Frangois  Clouet 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     359 

the  secret  of  the  transmutation  of  metals  into  gold  and 
silver.  The  alchemist  promised  to  give  the  first  proof  that 
he  was  on  the  road  to  this  discovery  in  six  months,  the 
second  proof  four  months  later,  and  in  two  years  the  com- 
plete formula.  In  exchange  the  King  and  his  brother  prom- 
ised the  alchemist  a  hundred  thousand  Uvres  of  rent  and  a 
hundred  thousand  livres  in  gold,  half  to  be  paid  after  the 
first  proof  and  half  after  the  second.  Six  thousand  gold 
crowns  were  to  be  paid  him  in  advance  and  twelve  hundred 
gold  crowns  a  month  were  to  be  furnished  during  the  experi- 
ments. A  document  of  this  kind  would  not  have  been  so 
astonishing  several  generations  back,  but  alchemy  was  now 
discredited  in  the  minds  of  all  men  of  intelligence.  Fifty 
years  before,  Erasmus  had  denounced  its  pretensions  in  his 
"Praise  of  Folly,"  which  was  read  by  all  persons  of  educa- 
tion in  Europe.  An  example  of  the  attitude  taken  toward 
alchemy  by  educated  men  in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  is  afforded  by  a  letter  from  the  Spanish  Ambassa- 
dor in  France  to  Philip  II  reporting  an  offer  to  make  gold. 
"I  have  told  the  man  that  alchemy  is  vain  and  uncertain 
and  that  I  have  little  confidence  in  it.  Your  Majesty  will 
believe  him  a  fool  with  his  babble  about  his  secret,  but 
Your  Majesty  can  shut  him  up  and  if  at  the  end  of  four 
months  he  has  not  done  what  he  talks  about,  he  can  be  sent 
to  row  in  a  galley  on  the  Barbary  coast."  ^ 

Though  Catherine  shared  fully  the  weakness  of  many  of 
the  Renascence  Princes  for  astrology,  she  does  not  seem  to 
have  had  any  faith  in  alchemy.  Probably  she  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  this  contract  signed  by  her  son.  Her  own  sim- 
ple way  of  raising  money  was  to  pawn  the  diamonds  of  the 
crown  to  Venice  for  a  hundred  thousand  ecus  and  the 
rubies  to  Florence  for  a  hundred  thousand  more.  She  re- 
fused to  accept  an  offer  of  five  thousand  horse  and  fifteen 
thousand  foot  from  Alva,  but  she  took  a  small  contingent 

*  B.  N.  Dupuy,  86;  copy  of  contract,  Lett.  pntd.  Revue  Retrospective, 
1834. 


360  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

from  him,  asked  money  from  the  Pope  and  the  Duke  of 
Florence  and  men  from  the  Duke  of  Savoy.^ 

After  the  first  few  weeks  the  royal  army  heavily  out- 
numbered the  insurgents,  but  the  Huguenots  had  in  the 
Admiral  a  great  unifying  force.  The  Prince  of  Conde  as  a 
prince  of  the  blood  was  the  nominal  chief  and  he  did  not 
always  do  in  military  matters  what  the  Admiral  advised. 
The  thousands  of  Huguenot  nobles  big  and  little,  who 
flocked  to  his  standard  had  for  the  Admiral,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  they  shared  thfi  faults  of  pride  and  an  inordinate 
desire  for  honor  which  were  common  to  all  the  French 
nobility,  a  sort  of  filial  reverence.  His  influence  was  always 
strong  enough  to  prevent  the  sort  of  bitter  quarrels  and 
jealousies  which  distracted  the  royal  army,  from  doing  too 
much  harm  in  the  Huguenot  camp.^ 

The  Huguenots  gave  the  reasons  for  their  rising  in  three 
documents.  The  first,  sent  to  the  King,  accused  the  house 
of  Guise  of  continually  slandering  them.  "They  are  even 
now  being  accused  of  disloyalty  because  they  dared  to  try 
to  come  before  His  Majesty  to  present  their  case  with  arms 
in  their  hands.  .  .  .  Your  Majesty  having  been  ear- 
nestly urged  to  keep  the  promise  made  by  you  a  long  time 
ago  to  the  King  of  Spain  to  seize  the  leaders  of  the  religion 
and  to  exterminate  all  those  who  profess  it,  they  have  no 
other  means  of  safely  trying  to  get  a  hearing  from  Your 
Majesty,  except  to  come  in  arms."  In  addition,  they  wanted 
Metz,  Calais  and  Havre  de  Grace  put  into  their  hands  as 
pledges.  To  these  extreme  demands  the  King  did  not 
deign  to  reply.  ^ 

The  second  manifesto,  sent  five  days  after  the  rising, 
added  other  reasons  for  it.  The  Huguenots  complained  of 
bad  administration  of  the  kingdom  and  that  it  was  crushed 
with  taxation  which  rested  heavily  upon  the  common  people 
and  even  oppressed  the  nobility,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 

'Bouille,  II,  388,  A.  N.  K.  1508  f.  70,  74;  Letts.  I,  70,  77,  B.  N.  It.  1728 
f.  163. 

•E.  g.  A.  N.  R.,  30  Nov.,  1567. 

*La  Popeliniere,  Bk.  XII.  20.  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  145. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     361 

they  had,  from  all  time,  been  exempt  from  taxation.  "This 
is  brought  about  by  the  greed  and  avarice  of  certain 
strangers,  more  particularly  Italians,  because  of  the  credit 
and  influence  which  they  enjoy  in  this  kingdom."  They 
asked  that  all  foreign  troops  be  dismissed,  that  the  Hugue- 
nots should  be  allowed  to  come  to  court  to  state  their  case  to 
His  Majesty,  that  the  Reformed  worship  should  be  entirely 
free  with  no  distinction  of  place  or  person  and  finally  that 
the  Estates  General  should  be  assembled.^ 

A  few  days  later  they  issued  a  third  manifesto,  in  which 
they  repudiated  the  idea  that  they  intended  any  danger 
either  to  the  person  of  the  King  or  to  the  Church  and  based 
their  rising  solely  upon  the  need  of  defending  themselves 
against  a  plot  to  exterminate  or  drive  out  of  the  kingdom 
aU  those  of  the  Reformed  religion.  They  added  a  humble 
request  that  the  King  would  consider  the  very  heavy  taxa- 
tion of  his  people  and,  in  order  to  do  it  the  better,  assemble 
the  Estates  General.  In  this  as  in  all  the  other  Huguenot 
wars,  whatever  other  reasons  might  be  alleged  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  revolt,  negotiations  for  peace  soon  made  it 
evident  that,  as  the  Venetian  Ambassador  reported,  "the 
chief  difficulty  is  reduced  to  the  single  head  of  religion."  ^ 

By  the  evident  allusion  to  the  Queen  Mother  and  the 
Italian  favorites  who  surrounded  her,  the  Huguenots  won 
what  they  had  never  had  before — the  decided  hatred  of 
Catherine  and  the  unfortunate  consequence  of  their  second 
rising  was  that  they  had  finally  broken  both  with  their 
young  King  and  with  his  mother,  the  real  ruler  of  the 
kingdom. 

The  backbone  of  the  Huguenot  armies  was  their  cavalry, 
made  up  of  the  lesser  nobles  or  country  gentry.  The  higher 
nobility  of  France  was  not  very  numerous,  though  much 
more  numerous  than  the  English  peerage,  which  was  not 
simply  a  fighting  caste  but  a  political  order  of  hereditary 
members  of  Parliament.    During  the  reign  of  Charles  IX, 

*  La  Popeliniere,  Bk.  XII,  21,  22. 
*B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  159. 


362  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

1560-1574,  when  the  English  House  of  Lords  had  about 
fifty  lay  members,  the  French  peerage  had  ten  Princes, 
ten  Dukes,  a  hundred  counts  and  about  a  hundred 
viscounts.  But  there  were  thousands  of  country  gentry. 
For  instance,  the  single  bishopric  of  Auxerre  had  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty-eight  country  gentlemen,  heads  of  families, 
who  by  the  old  feudal  right  owed  miUtary  service  to  their 
Count.  The  small  mountainous  province  of  Auvergne 
counted  fifteen  hundred  families  of  the  country  gentry. 
These  lived  on  their  estates  and  by  their  rents,  aided  by  the 
produce  of  their  domain  lands,  and  seldom  went  far  from 
home  except  for  war,  which  was  considered  their  chief, 
indeed  their  only,  calling.  Hence  the  proverb  "Gentil 
homme  sans  guerre  vaut  autant  que  paysan  sans  terre." 
Outside  of  certain  limited  sections  public  opinion  was 
strongly  opposed  to  their  engaging  in  business  and  besides 
most  of  them  were  too  proud  to  do  so.  Many  of  them 
indeed  managed  their  own  domain  lands,  though  when  they 
went  to  war  this  had  to  be  left  to  their  wives.^ 

The  first  part  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  a  time  of 
prosperity  for  France.  The  population  increased  and  there 
were  evident  signs  of  a  great  growth  of  agricultural  pro- 
duction. Great  extents  of  forest  land  were  cleared  for  culti- 
vation, many  new  grist  mills  were  built  and  France  became 
a  large  exporter  of  grain.  The  rental  value  of  land  rose 
steadily  and  continued  to  rise  out  of  proportion  to  the  fall 
in  the  value  of  money,  which  went  on  through  the  century 
because  of  the  increase  in  the  quantity  of  precious  metals, 
for  the  South  American  mines  alone  sent  to  Europe  in  the 
single  year  1545  almost  as  much  gold  as  had  been  mined  in 
the  world  in  the  fifty  previous  years.  The  nobles  paid  no 
taxes  and  this  agricultural  prosperity  brought  wealth  to  the 
country  gentry,  which  they  ought  to  have  accumulated,  for 
their  lives  were  simple. - 

Most  of  them  lived  in  chateaux  or  manor  houses,  which 

'De  Stoutz,  72;  Tommasco,  I,  490;  Brant.  IV,  328;  Rel.  I,  2,  p.  406. 
'De  la  Tour,  I,  215,  220,  285,  288;  Avenel,  16,  364. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     363 

were  a  complex  of  buildings  containing  in  one  group  every- 
thing necessary  for  the  management  of  the  domain  and  the 
life  of  the  master.  A  writer  on  agriculture  describes  in  1565 
a  typical  old-fashioned  manor  house.  It  was  surrounded  by 
a  stout  wall  some  ten  feet  high  with  a  gate  on  the  south 
side  large  enough  to  admit  a  loaded  hay  wagon.  Against 
the  left  wall  were  built  the  lodgings  for  the  farmer  and  his 
hands,  and  sheds  for  the  farm  implements  surmounted  by 
lofts  for  the  crops.  On  the  side  of  the  court  were  the  stables 
for  the  horses  and  cattle  with  their  forage  overhead.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  court  directly  opposite  the  gate  was  the 
master's  house,  usually  raised  on  a  platform  reached  by 
steps.  At  the  edge  of  the  platform  was  built  an  elaborate 
fowl  house,  ducks  and  geese  on  the  ground  floor,  chickens 
above,  with  separate  compartments  for  the  turkeys  and 
pheasants,  the  peacocks  being  allowed  to  range  the  prem- 
ises. The  sties  for  the  pigs  and  the  pens  for  the  sheep  and 
goats  were  on  the  north  wall  of  the  great  court.  Behind  the 
house  were  the  gardens,  the  pot  herbs  on  the  right  and  the 
flower  beds  and  vegetables  on  the  left.  Here  were  also  the 
bee-hives.  The  grand  allee,  a  double  row  of  trees,  led 
between  the  two  gardens  to  the  wall  of  the  orchard  and  in 
the  middle  of  the  allee  was  the  well.  Through  the  orchard 
a  door  opened  on  the  pasture  meadow.^ 

The  manor  was  not  luxuriously  furnished,  and  one  of  its 
chief  rooms  was  always  the  kitchen,  where  the  whole  fam- 
ily, master  and  domestics,  met  more  or  less  frequently. 
Many  of  the  smaller  gentry  dined  in  the  kitchen  and  in  the 
cold  winter  evenings  the  gentleman  and  lady  of  the  manor 
often  sat  in  their  high  backed  arm  chairs  under  the  hood  of 
the  great  chimney.  But  the  manor  houses  all  had  a  salon 
on  whose  walls  were  fixed  a  couple  of  swords,  a  couple  of 
pikes  and  halberds,  two  or  three  mail  coats,  some  bows, 
arbalests,  and  hackbuts.  The  hawk  sat  on  his  perch,  in  the 
corridor,  the  nets  for  hunting  were  thrown  down  in  the 

*  Charles  Estienne,  qtd.  Vaissiere  (1),  63. 


364  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

comer  and  under  the  great  bench  against  the  wall  the  hunt- 
ing dogs  lay  on  fresh  straw.^ 

Secure  in  the  distinction  of  his  rank  the  country  gentle- 
man ordinarily  lived  as  a  good  fellow  among  his  neighbors 
of  lower  position  and  was  usually  on  familiar  terms  with 
the  freeholders  and  peasants.  At  fetes  or  markets  he  drank 
at  the  village  inn  and  danced  with  the  peasant  girls  and  his 
own  domestics.  Very  few  of  the  gentry  took  any  interest  in 
things  of  the  mind  and  adventurous  spirits  could  always 
escape  by  military  service  from  any  sense  of  monotony 
which  might  seem  to  them  to  haunt  the  ancestral  courtyard 
filled  with  the  placid  life  of  the  farm.  When  the  Italian 
wars  had  ended  just  before  the  death  of  Henry  II  and  during 
the  intervals  of  the  civil  wars  beginning  with  the  reign  of 
Charles  IX,  some  of  these  more  active  spirits  travelled 
abroad,  so  that  twenty  years  later  it  was  estimated  that 
"three  or  four  hundred  young  men,  mostly  of  good  houses, 
leave  France  every  year  for  foreign  lands  to  see  and  to 
learn."  ^ 

In  spite  of  his  placid  existence,  the  country  gentleman 
had  his  strong  pride  and  sense  of  class  honor  which  led  to 
more  or  less  violence  and  attempts  to  take  the  law  into  his 
own  hands  when  the  incessant  law  suits  which  vied  with 
hunting  as  his  chief  amusements,  did  not  turn  out  to  his 
satisfaction.  But  up  to  the  reign  of  Henry  II  duels  were 
not  common  in  France.  From  that  time  on  the  habit  of 
duelling  spread,  so  that  about  a  generation  later  a  fighting 
man  of  letters  wrote  "the  slaughter  of  soldiers  in  duels  in  a 
single  year  is  greater  than  that  of  a  pitched  battle"  (1580- 
1585).  And  another  said:  "There  is  no  family  in  this 
kingdom  that  has  not  had  two  or  three  duels  in  the  past 
generation."  Pride  and  the  spirit  of  vengeance  roused  in 
the  civil  wars  caused  most  of  these,  but  among  the  courtiers, 
the  bulk  of  whom  were  from  the  families  of  the  country 
gentry,  bloody  duels  arose  on  the  most  frivolous  pretext;  as 

*Noel  du  Fail,  Contes  d'  Eutrapel,  II,  38,  40,  qtd.  Vaissiere  (1),  77. 
•Maulde,  I,  87;  de  la  Tour,  I,  377.  de  la  Noue. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     365 

when  two  of  these  young  gamecocks  quarreled  over  the 
question  whether  the  embroidery  on  a  lady's  dress  repre- 
sented a  border  of  the  letter  X  or  the  letter  Y.^ 

This  habit  of  duelling  was  only  one  phase  of  a  marked 
change  in  the  condition  and  conduct  of  the  lesser  nobility 
which  began  in  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  Their  prosperity 
declined  so  that  forty  years  later  one  of  them  could  write, 
"it  does  not  need  many  words  to  make  everyone  recognize 
how  thoroughly  the  gentlemen  of  France  have  lost  the 
prosperity  and  abundance  in  which  they  lived  up  to  the 
accession  of  Henry  II."  Some  observers  charged  this  wholly 
upon  the  ruinous  effects  of  the  civil  wars  following  the 
foreign  wars  of  Henry  II,  but  the  gentry  were  well  paid  in 
the  Italian  wars  and  the  civil  wars,  ruinous  as  they  were, 
affected  less  than  half  of  them.  The  decline  of  their  pros- 
perity seems  therefore  to  have  been  most  largely  due  to 
abandoning  the  old  simple  patriarchal  life  of  the  lord  and 
lady,  to  change  fustian  for  silk  and  to  adopt  more  and  more 
luxurious  habits  until  finally  even  the  pages  and  lackeys 
were  clad  in  cloth  of  gold.^ 

For  this  more  sumptuous  life  the  country  gentleman 
began  to  seek  a  more  elegant  setting.  "It  seemed  to  him 
that  the  cage  was  too  small  for  so  beautiful  a  bird."  The 
new  manner  of  domestic  architecture  suggested  by  the  Ital- 
ian craftsmen  called  to  the  courts  of  Louis  XII  and  Francis 
I,  was  slowly  taken  up  and  adapted  to  its  new  setting  by 
French  skill.  Many  a  country  gentleman  became  discon- 
tented with  the  plain  ancestral  house  and  remodelled  it  in 
the  newer  and  more  stately  fashion.  Some  of  them  began 
to  build  without  sitting  down  to  count  the  cost  and  the 
second  and  third  generations  of  the  sixteenth  century  saw 
many  "follies"  erected  to  impoverish  once  flourishing  estates 
and  make  a  splendid  setting  for  a  pinched  existence  in  man- 
sions whose  owners,  when  they  received  their  fathers'  old 
friends,  were  obliged  to  regale  them  chiefly  by  discourses  on 

*De  la  Noue,  Discours,  244;  Duplessis  Momay,  Arch.  C,  X,  93; 
Mouton,  85. 

'De  la  Noue,  157,  159,  160. 


366  CATHERINE  DE  MEBICIS 

architecture.  There  was  a  well-known  monk,  welcome  in 
many  manors  and  chateaux  because  of  his  charming  social 
qualities,  whose  ready  wit  found  a  favorite  subject  in  this 
situation.  "He  was  wont  to  say,  *0h  what  is  the  use  of 
these  beautiful  towers,  salons  and  cabinets  where  the  cook- 
ing pots  are  so  cold  and  the  cellars  so  empty?  By  the 
worthy  slipper  of  the  Pope  (his  usual  oath),  I  like  better  to 
lodge  under  a  low  roof  and  to  hear  from  my  room  the  music 
of  turning  spits  and  smell  the  fragrance  of  roasts  and  to  see 
the  sideboard  well  covered  with  goblets  and  bottles  than  to 
visit  in  these  grand  palaces,  to  take  beautiful  walks  through 
stately  halls,  breaking  a  fast  with  a  toothpick.'  "  ^ 

In  the  days  of  Francis  I  and  his  son,  the  nobles  feared 
the  expense  of  court  service  and  those  who  had  court  duties 
established  the  custom  of  serving  by  quarters,  which  left 
them  for  nine  months  in  the  cheap  abundance  of  the  manor. 
The  King's  household  had  only  one  hundred  and  sixty 
ofi&cers.  But  from  the  reign  of  his  son  there  was  a  steady 
increase  in  this  roll  of  courtiers  up  to  its  apogee  under 
Louis  XVI  when  the  household  of  the  King  was  four  thou- 
sand and  of  each  prince  of  the  royal  family  two  thousand. 
As  the  gentry  began  to  feel  the  attraction  of  court  life,  many 
of  them  tired  of  an  isolation  where  they  were  "free  as  the 
Doge  of  Venice"  and  gave  mortgages  to  enable  them  to 
carry  their  "mills,  forests  and  meadows  on  their  backs." 
They  became  avid  for  court  appointments  as  the  court  be- 
came larger  and  larger,  until,  as  one  of  them  said,  his  fellows 
were  "chasing  offices  like  swallows  after  flies."  ^ 

The  Calvinist  preachers,  outside  of  very  limited  areas, 
never  had  very  much  success  among  the  peasants.  They 
first  found  a  hearing  in  the  towns,  beginning  among  the 
humbler  artisans  and  gradually  spreading  their  doctrines  in 
many  places  among  the  higher  burghers'  families  whose 
members  were  apt  to  be  chosen  to  civic  offices.  Their  in- 
fluence then  extended  rapidly  among  the  gentry,  especially 

*De  la  Noue,  Discours,  166. 

'Tommasco,  I,  488;  Montaigne,  I,  42;  du  Bellay,  Vielleville. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     367 

south  of  the  Loire  and  in  the  populous  and  wealthy  province 
of  Normandy.  Even  with  so  brief  a  description  of  the 
character  and  life  of  that  class  of  the  population,  it  requires 
but  little  imagination  to  see  how  quickly  formidable  armies 
could  be  raised  among  the  lords  of  the  manor  and  their  sons 
and  servitors,  embittered  by  long  persecution  and  sometimes 
maddened  by  the  loss  of  a  friend  or  relative  in  the  frequent 
mob  massacres  of  the  orthodox  peasants  or  superstitious 
city  proletariats,  which  so  often  preceded  the  outbreaks  of 
the  intermittent  civil  war.  As  the  rallying  word  spread 
from  manor  to  manor,  the  horses  were  saddled,  the  arms 
taken  down  from  the  wall,  purses  filled  from  the  strong  box 
under  the  master's  bed  and,  in  little  groups  of  relatives  or 
neighbors,  the  elements  of  what  was  probably  the  best 
cavalry  then  in  the  world,  filled  with  a  reckless  native 
courage  and  leavened  with  veterans  of  the  old  wars,  flowed 
rapidly  from  all  directions  toward  the  mustering  place.  In 
this  way  a  single  gentleman  of  the  south  travelling  from 
chateau  to  chateau  raised  over  five  hundred  cavaliers  during 
his  journey,  and  on  one  occasion,  at  the  call  of  Coligny  and 
his  brothers,  three  thousand  horsemen  mustered  in  six  days.^ 
At  the  beginning  of  the  civil  wars  the  nobles  of  France 
were  by  no  means  an  individualistic  body.  They  formed 
sections  whose  numbers  were  more  or  less  closely  bound  to 
each  other.  The  provincial  feeling  was  strong  and  each  of 
the  nobles  of  Burgundy,  for  instance,  was  conscious  of  a 
certain  solidarity  which  distinguished  the  whole  body  from 
the  nobles  of  Picardy.  The  influence  of  the  old  feudal  ties, 
even  though  service  could  no  longer  be  exacted,  made  the 
nominal  vassals  of  great  houses  still  apt  to  sustain  their 
quarrels  and  follow  their  lead.  When  the  Prince  of  Conde 
married  the  daughter  of  the  Due  de  Thouars  the  nobility 
allied  by  blood  or  vassalage  to  the  important  family  of 
Tremoille  came  over  to  his  side.  The  old  Seigneur  de  la 
Vergne  rode  into  the  battle  of  Jarnac  in  the  midst  of  twenty- 
five  descendant's  and  nephews  and  fell  in  the  heap  of  fifteen 

*De  Ruble  ctd.  (1),  I,  194;  Marcks,  154. 


368  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

of  them  killed  together.  But  the  civil  wars  broke  up  some 
of  these  geographical,  legal  or  family  groups.  No  province 
was  solidly  orthodox  and  royalist,  though  in  some  the  num- 
ber of  Huguenots  was  inconsiderable  and  even  in  the 
provinces  which  were  the  Huguenot  strongholds,  the  Catho- 
lic nobility  rose  in  arms  and  made  provincial  civil  war. 
The  ties  of  vassalage,  friendship  and  blood,  though  they 
held  in  many  cases,  proved  not  strong  enough  to  resist  the 
divisive  influence  of  difference  of  opinion  about  religion. 
Many  of  the  families  of  the  country  gentry  split  like  the 
great  noble  houses  of  Bourbon  and  Montmorency.  Even 
the  sons  did  not  always  follow  their  fathers  and  in  the 
slaughterous  cavalry  charges  which  were  the  turning  points 
of  most  of  the  battles,  the  swords  of  friends  and  of  brothers 
must  often  have  been  crossed.^ 

The  great  majority  of  the  French  gentry  remained 
orthodox  and  of  the  orthodox  gentry  many,  in  the  succes- 
sive wars,  rallied  to  the  royal  standard.  But  the  appeal  to 
support  their  cause  in  arms  was  apparently  not  as  quickly 
effective  in  their  case  as  in  that  of  their  heretic  neighbors, 
for  the  Huguenots  started  the  first  three  wars  with  more 
cavalry  than  the  King.  Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  all  the 
gentry  were  extremely  zealous,  eager  to  take  part  in  the 
fighting,  or  even  very  much  interested  in  public  affairs. 
When  the  German  was  at  the  gates  of  Paris  in  1914,  fisher- 
men still  sat  quietly  on  the  quais,  absorbed  in  watching 
then-  tiny  floats  on  the  current  of  the  Seine.  Gilles  de 
Gouberville,  a  country  gentleman  of  Normandy,  has  left  a 
very  detailed  journal  from  1553  to  April,  1562,  covering 
therefore  the  outbreak  of  the  first  Huguenot  war,  and,  dur- 
ing that  critical  period,  it  records  a  hundred  times  as  many 
observations  on  good  or  bad  weather  as  on  the  prospects  of 
peace  or  war  and  displays  far  more  interest  in  the  kiUing 
of  his  pigs  or  the  felling  of  his  trees  than  in  the  massacres 

*  Letts.  Missive  Henri  IV,  Vol.  II,  p.  11,  128;  d'Aubigne,  III,  51; 
Romier,  Rev.  Hist.  1917,  pp.  1,  255;  Letts.  I,  325,  de  la  Noue.  Brant. 
V,  350;  d'Aubigne,  III,  39,  154,  IV,  324,  V,  295,  VII,  84,  etc.  Lambert,  II, 
42,  A.  N.  K.  1497  B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3951  f.  42. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     369 

of  Huguenots  or  the  plundering  of  churches,  which  we  know 
was  going  on  all  around  him.  A  considerable  proportion  of 
the  gentry  of  France  were  like  him  and  kept  out  of  the  whole 
business  so  far  as  they  could.  In  time  of  stress  a  large 
number,  perhaps  the  majority,  of  any  nation,  are  drawn 
from  their  habitual  routine  of  living  and  thinking,  if  at  all, 
only  by  the  inescapable  pressure  of  circumstances  set  in 
train  by  more  ardent,  more  adventurous,  more  interested  or 
more  conscientious  personalities. 

The  second  element  of  the  Huguenot  forces  came  from 
the  burghers  of  the  towns.  The  Huguenot  armies  did  not 
usually  make  their  base  in  any  city.  They  were  apt  to  keep 
the  field  and  fight  an  open  campaign.  As  one  of  the  old 
captains  put  it,  he  liked  better  "to  hear  the  lark  sing  than 
the  mouse  squeak."  But  their  leaders  saw  from  the  first 
the  enormous  importance  of  the  towns  in  any  war  waged  in 
France.  Since  the  general  use  of  artillery,  fortresses  were 
not,  it  is  true,  of  the  overwhelming  mihtary  importance 
they  had  been  in  feudal  times.  But  cannon  were  still  very 
hard  to  transport  and  neither  very  plentiful  nor  very  effi- 
cient. There  was,  of  course,  a  sort  of  refuge  for  a  defeated 
and  scattered  army  in  old  chateaux  and  deserted  manors. 
Thirty  years  after  the  outbreak  of  the  first  Huguenot  war 
there  were  in  the  single  province  of  Poitou  more  than  two 
hundred  chateaux  belonging  to  Huguenots  "capable  of 
standing  cannon"  and  so  delaying  somewhat  a  victorious 
force  and  giving  time  for  a  broken  army  to  rally.  But  the 
Huguenot  leaders  needed  something  stronger  and  larger  to 
fall  back  on.  There  were  in  France  about  four  hundred 
chartered  towns,  the  greater  part  of  them  more  or  less 
strongly  fortified,  and  in  addition  there  were  a  number  of 
fortified  villages.  In  some  towns  the  Huguenots  were  the 
stronger  and  these  declared  for  the  party  whenever  war 
began.  In  addition  the  outbreak  of  every  war  was  signalled 
by  simultaneous  attempts  to  seize  a  number  of  others, 
either  with  or  without  the  aid  of  Huguenots  within  the 
walls.    An  English  Ambassador  pointed  out  that  a  civil  war 


370  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

in  England  would  be  much  shorter  than  in  France  because 
of  the  absence  of  a  large  number  of  defensible  walled  towns 
in  England.^  Most  of  the  walled  towns  possessed  arms, 
particularly  firearms  and  at  least  a  few  cannon,  and  from 
among  their  inhabitants  there  could  readily  be  raised 
bands  of  harquebusiers  which  formed  the  infantry  of  the 
Huguenot  armies.  They  also  furnished  such  field  pieces  or 
siege  guns  as  the  Huguenot  forces  had  and  the  artillerymen 
to  handle  them.  The  Huguenot  churches,  organized  by 
presbyteries  and  synods,  came  to  undertake  the  formation 
of  much  of  this  city  infantry  and  many  congregations  had 
captains  in  their  employ.  In  the  later  wars  the  synods 
voted  men  and  money  for  the  Huguenot  armies  much  as 
modem  states  might  do  and  from  time  to  time  these  synods 
elected  leaders  of  the  Huguenot  nobility  "Protectors  of  the 
Churches."  In  addition  a  local  church  or  group  of  churches 
often  had  a  noble  as  "protector." 

The  Huguenot  war  chest  was  never  any  too  full,  but  it 
was  saved  from  emptiness  by  the  contributions  of  nobles, 
some  of  whom  made  great  financial  sacrifices  for  the  cause, 
by  money  collected  by  the  Reformed  churches,  by  presents 
sent  from  sympathizers  abroad,  by  melting  down  the  gold 
or  silver  vessels  of  captured  churches,  by  impositions  levied 
in  captured  cities  and  so  called  "taxes"  collected  from  the 
peasants.  Their  war  expenses  were  decreased  by  the  fact 
that  their  cavalry  were  expected  to  furnish  their  own  fight- 
ing equipment,  while  their  armies  lived  to  a  considerable 
extent  on  the  country  where  they  campaigned.  In  addition 
the  sympathy  of  many  of  the  German  princes  and  nobles 
whose  business  was  the  raising  of  mercenary  troops  for 
service  in  foreign  armies,  made  them  more  ready  than  they 
would  have  been  in  other  cases  to  serve  the  Huguenot 
leaders  on  credit.  In  the  later  wars  the  party  found  a  large 
resource  in  a  tax  of  ten  per  cent  levied  on  the  gains  of 
privateers  sailing  from  La  Rochelle  to  prey  on  French 

'  B.  N.  Nouvs.  Acqs.  20600  f ,  175,  e.  g.  Quantin.  ptnd.  36,  39,  Cal.  F. 
1571,  p.  437. 


THE  HUGUENOTS  RENEW  THE  CIVIL  WAR     371 

commerce  or  the  ships  of  Spaniards,  whom  they  treated  as 
enemies.  In  accordance  with  a  practice  which  continued  to 
be  a  recognized  method  of  warfare  down  to  the  nineteenth 
century,  these  privateers  were  granted  letters  of  marque 
which  authorized  them  to  attack  enemy  commerce  on  their 
own  charges  and  for  private  gain. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CATHERINE    MAKES    PEACE.       THE    POLITIQUES.       CATHERINE 
RENEWS   THE   CIVIL   WAR 

The  Huguenots,  after  the  entire  failure  of  their  plan  to 
seize  the  King  and  surprise  many  cities,  shifted  quickly  and 
adopted  very  bold  strategy.  They  started  to  starve  out 
Paris.  Within  three  days  of  their  rising  they  were  raiding 
the  suburbs  and  burning  all  the  windmills  on  one  side  of  the 
city.  They  then  seized  bridges  on  all  the  rivers  by  which 
provisions  were  brought  by  boat  and  blockaded  the  roads. 
With  this  grip  upon  the  capital  they  waited  till  their  forces 
could  come  up  from  Poitou,  Guienne,  Dauphiny,  Auvergne, 
Languedoc  and  other  provinces  of  the  south,  which  was 
the  true  Huguenot  country.  They  sacked  every  church 
and  clergyman's  house  for  leagues  around.  The  linens  and 
velvets  and  silks  of  the  church  treasuries  they  took  for 
their  own  use  and  made  of  them  trousers,  vests  and  hand- 
kerchiefs, but  for  all  the  precious  metals  and  jewels  of  the 
altar  furnishings  and  ornaments  they  were  obliged  to  give  a 
strict  accounting  and  to  turn  them  into  a  common  fund  for 
the  expenses  of  the  army.  They  ill-treated  a  number  of  the 
priests,  chiefly  by  way  of  brutal  mockery.  And  they  some- 
times put  to  the  torture  church  ofiEicers  whom  they  sus- 
pected of  concealing  precious  vessels  or  jewels.^ 

They  did  not  have  a  large  enough  force  to  beleaguer 
Paris  and  the  army  of  the  Constable  kept  steadily  increasing 
until,  early  in  November,  he  had  twenty  thousand  well- 
armed  men.  Conde's  headquarters  were  at  the  city  of  St. 
Denis  close  to  the  gate  of  Paris  in  a  carefully  intrenched 
camp  where  he  could  rally  about  four  thousand  infantry 
and  two  thousand  cavalry.    On  the  10th  of  November  the 

'La  Popeliniere,  XII,  19;  Haton,  I,  144. 

372 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  373 

Constable  inarched  out  of  the  Porte  St.  Denis  to  form  line 
of  battle  in  the  plain  between  the  two  cities.  Conde  had 
just  sent  off  d'Andelot  with  five  hundred  horse  and  a  good 
body  of  harquebusiers  to  block  the  supposed  advance  of  the 
Spanish  auxiliaries.  The  Admiral  was  in  favor  of  skirmish- 
ing and  retiring,  but  the  Prince  wanted  to  fight.  The  fiery- 
charge  of  the  Huguenot  gentlemen,  led  by  the  Admiral,  on 
the  right  wing,  was  entirely  successful.  They  broke  through, 
attacked  the  six  thousand  Parisian  militia  held  in  reserve 
and  drove  them  in  headlong  panic  back  to  Paris.  Mean- 
while Conde,  charging  the  center,  forced  their  ranks  to  give 
way.  The  Constable  was  in  his  seventy-fifth  year,  but, 
bleeding  from  four  or  five  wounds,  he  stood  to  it  in  the  melee 
till  his  horse  was  knocked  down.  He  struggled  to  his  feet 
and  an  old  enemy,  Robert  Stuart,  formerly  of  the  Scotch 
guard,  called  on  him  to  surrender.  For  answer  the  indomi- 
table old  man  drove  the  hilt  of  a  broken  sword  into  his  foe's 
mouth,  knocking  out  two  of  his  teeth,  and  the  same  instant 
fell  mortally  wounded  by  a  pistol  ball.  But  the  Catholic 
line  was  so  much  longer  than  the  Huguenot  that  their  un- 
broken squadrons  still  outnumbered  them.  They  ralhed 
and  fell  upon  Conde,  driving  him  back  in  his  turn.  The 
Admiral  had  been  riding  a  hard-mouthed  horse  which  bolted 
with  him  and  carried  him  so  far  that  his  men  were  left  with- 
out a  leader.  In  consequence,  the  night  fell  with  the 
Catholic  army  in  great  confusion,  but  practically  masters  of 
the  field,  and  the  Huguenots  slowly  retreating  toward  the 
city  of  St.  Denis.^ 

The  mortal  wound  of  the  Constable  was  a  great  blow  to 
the  Catholics,  who  at  midnight  retired  within  Paris,  and  the 
next  morning  the  Huguenots  reoccupied  their  battle  line. 
D'Andelot,  who  had  hurried  back  too  late  to  join  in  the 
fighting,  made  an  unopposed  raid,  burning  and  laying  waste 
up  to  the  very  walls  of  the  city.  Both  sides  claimed  the 
victory,  but  it  is  evident  that  but  for  the  fall  of  night  the 
Huguenots   might   have    been    completely   overwhelmed. 

*Casteliiau,  Bk.  VI,  Ch.  7,  Cal.  F.  1568,  p.  370,  d'Aumale,  Whitehead. 


374  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Nevertheless  the  victors  were  not  too  much  elated,  for  the 
Huguenot  gentry,  heavily  outnumbered,  had  again  demon- 
strated their  dangerous  fighting  power  and  Conde  had  main- 
tained a  favorable  position.  Three  days  after  the  battle, 
while  the  commanders  of  the  royal  army  were  still  quarrel- 
ing over  who  should  succeed  to  the  position  of  the  Constable, 
the  Huguenots  started  on  a  march  eastward,  which  enabled 
them  to  form  a  junction  with  considerable  reinforcements 
from  the  south  (10,000  men).  Then,  swingmg  toward  the 
north,  they  met  on  the  banks  of  the  Moselle  ten  thousand 
German  mercenaries,  provided  with  a  few  field  pieces  and 
commanded  by  the  young  son  of  the  Elector  Palatine.  This 
was  a  large  corps  of  mercenaries,  equal  to  the  combined 
German  and  Swiss  contingents  under  Anjou's  command. 

For  in  the  midst  of  the  jealous  and  quarreling  nobles  of 
the  army  Catherine  saw  nothing  better  to  do  than  to  make 
the  King's  younger  brother,  Henry,  Duke  of  Anjou,  then 
sixteen,  Lieutenant-General  of  the  King.  But  this  appoint- 
ment did  not  stop  the  quarrels  and  five  great  nobles  de- 
manded the  leading  of  the  vanguard  and  the  position  of 
lieutenant  for  the  young  Prince.  Catherine  had  already 
summoned  the  Duke  of  Nevers  with  royal  troops  from 
Piedmont  and  she  urged  him  again  and  again  to  hasten  his 
arrival.  She  ordered  that  her  son's  command  of  the  army 
should  be  exercised  by  the  advice  of  the  Duke  of  Montpen- 
sier,  the  Duke  of  Nemours  and  Marshal  Cosse,  to  whom  she 
added  the  Duke  of  Nevers  when  he  arrived.  This  council 
was  to  exercise  very  strict  control.  It  was  probably  the  best 
arrangement  possible,  but  it  worked  very  badly.  The  jeal- 
ousies seemed  to  grow  worse  from  day  to  day.  Catherine 
did  her  best  by  letters  to  put  some  energy  into  the  camp 
and  visited  it  in  the  hope  of  appeasing  quarrels.  But  this 
very  visit  provoked  discontent.  The  Duke  of  Nemours  pro- 
tested angrily,  and  Catherine  was  obliged  to  write  to  him 
that  she  had  no  intention  of  interfering  in  the  campaign, 
"for  war  can  only  be  wagied  by  one  on  the  spot."  In  one 
case  the  quarrel  even  went  so  far  as  the  lie,  a  blow  and  a 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  375 

drawn  dagger,  with  Anjou  and  his  suite  holding  the  men  to 
prevent  bloodshed  and  the  Swiss  guards  afterwards  threat- 
ening to  fight  the  Breton  regiments  to  avenge  the  dishonor 
to  their  colonel.^ 

In  addition  to  this  discord  the  poverty  of  the  Crown  was 
so  extreme  and  its  credit  so  low  that  the  King,  who  had 
announced  a  loan  from  the  city  of  Paris  at  81/3%,  was 
obliged  to  bid  the  notaries  stop  all  investments  of  money  in 
mortgages  until  the  loan  was  taken  up.^ 

The  military  situation  was  a  very  serious  one.  The 
Huguenot  army,  after  their  junction  with  their  German 
auxiliaries,  had  recrossed  the  Moselle  and  made  a  skilful 
retreat  to  their  old  center,  Orleans,  a  position  in  touch  with 
the  provinces  where  their  chief  strength  lay.  Conde,  who 
had  threatened  the  court  five  months  before  with  less  than 
two  thousand  men,  now  had  thirty  thousand  under  his 
command  and  the  royal  army  did  not  feel  strong  enough 
to  take  the  field  against  him. 

Catherine  was  evidently  anxious  not  to  have  matters 
pushed  to  an  issue  upon  the  field  of  battle.  She  had  been 
intensely  angered  as  well  as  frightened  by  the  second 
Huguenot  attack  upon  the  court,  wrote  of  it  with  the  great- 
est indignation,  and  returned  to  her  old  habit  of  alluding  to 
the  heretics  as  "that  vermin."  But  before  the  year  was 
over  she  had  suppressed  her  anger  and  was  actively  engaged 
in  negotiations  for  peace.  The  Huguenots  demanded  that 
all  noblemen  should  have  the  right  of  worship  in  their 
houses  and  that  anyone  might  come  to  it  who  wished.  They 
wanted  the  edict  regarding  religion  made  perpetual  and 
irrevocable  instead  of  a  mere  royal  proclamation  and  they 
asked  that  Huguenot  judges  and  municipal  officials  who  had 
been  removed  should  be  replaced  in  their  offices.  Catherine 
sent  the  first  of  these  articles  to  her  son  with  the  request 
that  the  princes  and  leading  officers  of  the  camp  should 

*B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  169,  A.  N.  K.  30  Nov.,  1567,  B.  N.  Bethune,  8730; 
Letts.  Ill,  103,  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  187,  196,  A.  N.  K.  1509  f.  10;  Letts.  Ill,  99; 
Cal.  F.  1568,  p.  407. 

'B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  215,  220;  Cal.  F.  1568,  p.  433. 


376  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

express  their  opinion  upon  it.  They  voted  unanimously 
that  it  ought  to  be  granted,  and,  although  the  King  was 
unwilling  to  grant  the  other  Huguenot  demands,  negotia- 
tions continued  with  hope  of  a  successful  issue.  This 
roused  the  anger  of  the  Spanish  Ambassador,  who  had  a 
most  stormy  interview  with  Catherine  in  which  he  accused 
her  of  being  the  only  person  who  wanted  a  thing  so  per- 
nicious not  only  to  this  kingdom  but  to  all  Christendom  as 
peace  with  heretics.  He  told  her  that  she  "really  wanted 
what  she  said  she  didn't  want."  "He  got  angry,"  she  re- 
ports, "and  I  got  furious."  ^ 

Before  the  end  of  March  the  peace  was  made.  But  the 
Edict  of  Longjumeau,  which  recorded  the  terms,  was  more 
the  beginning  of  suspicion  than  the  end  of  hatred  and  the 
peace  which  followed  it  was  worse  than  war.  The  royal 
ofl&cers  found  it  impossible,  at  first,  to  enforce  the 
Edict  at  all.  The  German  mercenaries  of  both  sides,  as  they 
retired,  plundered  right  and  left,  the  peasants  in  revenge 
killed  stragglers  and  in  turn  the  reiters  burnt  villages.  The 
Huguenot  regiments  from  the  south,  before  they  left  Tou- 
raine,  destroyed  churches  and  killed  priests.  In  Orleans, 
when  the  Catholics  according  to  the  Edict  prepared  to  say 
mass,  the  Huguenots  stopped  them  and  overturned  the 
altars.  At  Rouen  and  Amiens  where  the  Catholics  were 
the  stronger  they  hung  some  Huguenots  and  killed  others 
in  the  streets.  Amid  the  continual  flood  of  reports  of  dis- 
orders, it  seemed  to  one  observer  at  court  that  "wherever 
one  side  found  itself  strong  it  would  not  grant  the  privileges 
of  the  peace  to  the  other  side."  Six  weeks  after  the  procla- 
mation of  the  Edict,  news  reached  the  court  that  the 
Catholics  of  Vienne  had  killed  many  Huguenots  and  nearly 
every  day  reports  came  from  some  place  of  importance  that 
the  law  had  been  broken  by  one  side  or  the  other.  In  Paris 
Huguenots  were  killed  by  the  mob,  dismembered  and 
dragged  about  the  city  by  boys.  The  Venetian  Ambassador 
reports:  "I  saw  this  twice  before  my  house.  I  was  stupe- 
"B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  178;  Letts.  Ill,  60,  62,  75,  81,  89. 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  377 

fied  to  see  boys  not  more  than  three  palms  high  standing 
around  a  bloody  corpse,  beating  it  with  sticks  and  stamping 
on  the  face;  finally  it  was  thrown  into  the  river."  The 
Duke  of  Montpensier  reported  that  the  city  of  La  Rochelle, 
the  great  Huguenot  stronghold,  had  refused  to  allow  the 
royal  commander  to  bring  any  troops  past  their  gates  and 
that  a  score  or  more  of  priests  had  been  publicly  put  to 
death.  After  long  hesitation  most  of  the  Huguenot  towns 
received  royal  garrisons,  but  La  Rochelle  continued  to 
refuse,  saying  that  for  three  hundred  years  they  had  never 
had  a  garrison  and  that  the  garrisoned  cities  like  Lyons, 
Orleans,  Bordeaux,  Limoges,  Angers,  received  every  day  ill 
treatment  from  the  King's  soldiers.  They  also  refused  to 
pay  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  livres  which  had  been 
levied  upon  them,  saying  they  were  too  much  impoverished 
by  the  late  war.^ 

It  is  small  wonder  therefore  that  more  than  two  months 
after  the  publication  of  the  Edict  of  Pacification,  the  King 
began  a  letter  to  one  of  his  marshals  as  follows:  "Inasmuch 
as  up  to  the  present  time  my  Edict  of  Pacification  has  not 
been  observed  and  kept  according  to  my  intentions,  etc." 
Against  the  wrongs  inflicted  upon  their  followers  the  lead- 
ing Huguenots  like  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  the  Cardinal  of 
Chatillon,  the  Admiral  and  the  Prince  of  Conde  made  for- 
mal and  bitter  protest,  emphasizing  particularly  the  con- 
tinual murders  by  which  "more  were  being  slain  in  peace 
than  had  fallen  in  war."  So  that  "if  the  King  would  really 
do  justice  for  these  outrages,  the  trees  would  have  more  men 
hanging  on  them  than  leaves."  ^ 

As  time  went  on  these  complaints  grew  more  bitter  and 
more  like  threats  and  just  before  the  tension  broke  again 
in  open  war,  a  passionate  summary  of  them  was  written  to 
Catherine  with  a  deep  tone  of  menace  from  a  new  source. 
At  the  end  of  August,  Elizabeth  of  England  sent  her  Ambas- 

'B.  N.  fds.  fr.  6611  f.  59  A.  N.  K.  1509,  Mar.  27;  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  223, 
228,  238,  247,  Nouvs.  Acqs.  6001  f.  21  C.  C.  C.  24  f.  330,  355. 

'B.  N.  fds.  fr.  3207  f.  59  C.  C.  C.  24  f.  146,  178,  329,  346;  d'Aumale 
pntd.  App.  11,  281,  282;  Cal.  F.  1567,  p.  516. 


378  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

sador  a  long  written  message  to  be  delivered  to  the  King  of 
France  and  his  mother  in  the  presence  of  the  royal  council 
about  the 

"violations  of  the  royal  Edict  throughout  France  and  that  not 
by  private  persons,  but  also  by  governors  of  your  provinces, 
castles  and  cities  and  frequently  by  your  soldiers  in  garrison. 
,  .  ,  And  what  is  more  horrible  before  God,  these  murders  are, 
as  everybody  knows,  maintained,  incited  and  rewarded  by  those 
who  have  great  influence  under  Your  Majesty.  .  .  .  Reports  of 
horrible  plunderings  by  fire  and  sword,  drowning  or  strangling 
your  subjects  in  monstrous,  barbarous,  brutal  and  horrible  ways, 
men,  women  and  children,  noble  and  ignoble,  rich  and  poor,  are 
sent  to  the  Queen  of  England  every  day  by  people  worthy  of 
belief,  merchants  and  others  of  her  subjects  doing  business  in 
France.  ...  If  the  King  will  inquire  through  impartial  persons, 
he  will  find  that  his  realm  is  more  weakened  and  wasted  in  six 
months  since  the  edict  of  peace  than  in  nine  months  of  civil  war 
before.  ...  In  conclusion.  Sire,  ...  if  those  who  thus  kill  and 
plunder  are  avowed  and  maintained,  as  if  it  was  done  by  an 
ordinance  of  the  Church  of  Rome  in  order  to  exterminate  those 
who  do  not  agree  to  the  doctrines  of  Rome,  the  Queen  of  England 
sees  clearly,  although  perhaps  very  late,  the  danger  which 
threatens  her  and  her  state,  and  also  she  does  not  doubt  that 
other  princes  and  potentates  agreeing  with  her  against  the  unity 
of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  will  see  plainly  how  necessary  it  is  for 
them  to  provide  promptly  against  such  a  danger.  The  Queen 
of  England  now  feels  herself  discharged  before  God  and  her 
honor  and  toward  you,  her  good  brother  and  ally  for  any  steps 
she  may  take  for  her  own  safety."  ^ 

To  this  protest  Catherine  replied  firmly,  "The  King  will 
not  admit  any  judge  or  mediator  between  himself  and  his 
subjects  .  .  .  and  he  begs  the  Queen  and  all  other  princes 
not  to  thrust  themselves  into  this  affair."  But  while  Cath- 
erine strongly  resented  Elizabeth's  remonstrance  about  the 
sufferings  of  the  Huguenots,  she  sent  conciliatory  answers 
to  the  complaints  of  her  own  subjects  and  frequently  wrote 
to  the  royal  ofiScers  to  enforce  the  Edict  of  Pacification. 
Outrages,  however,  did  not  stop  and  the  Huguenots  began 

*E.g.,  Conde  to  King,  Aug.,  1568,  B.  N.  C.  C.  C.  24  f.  178;  pntd. 
in  French,  Letts.  Ill,  179,  Cal.  F.  1568,  summary. 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  379 

to  suspect  that  worse  things  had  been  planned  against 
them.  It  is  not  surprising  therefore  that  by  the  middle  of 
the  spring  the  report  was  circulated  that  a  privy  councillor 
of  the  Queen  Mother  had  on  his  death  bed  told  his  physician 
that  the  Queen  "had  made  this  peace  for  no  other  end  than 
that  tho,3e  of  the  religion,  being  now  exhausted  by  long 
expense  and  scattered  to  their  houses,  might  with  greater 
facility  be  dispatched."  * 

Three  things  very  much  increased  the  suspicion  and 
fears  of  the  Huguenots.  The  first  was  the  fact  that  since 
the  beginning  of  the  civil  war,  a  whole  network  of  orthodox 
leagues,  similar  to  that  formed  earlier  by  Monluc  in  the 
south,  had  been  spread  over  France.  These  were  sometimes 
provincial  and  sometimes  municipal.  By  the  middle  of  the 
summer  they  existed  in  Burgundy,  Berry,  Champagne,  Brie, 
Maine,  Anjou,  Touraine,  Limousin,  Agenois  and  at  Chalon- 
sur-Saone,  Beauvais,  Toulouse,  Anduze  and  Perigord. 
Their  members  were  sworn  to  maintain  "the  law  and  faith 
of  which  we  make  profession  in  our  baptism  and  to  render 
all  friendship  and  fraternity  one  to  the  other,  to  aid  each 
other  reciprocally  against  all  attempts  of  the  opposite  party 
without  regard  to  friends,  or  any  relationship  which  we  may 
have  with  those  who  undertake  the  contrary."  The  exist- 
ence of  these  associations  without  any  government  author- 
ity suggested  of  itself  the  chances  of  a  renewal  of  the  war, 
and  the  Huguenots  could  hardly  have  been  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  by  the  middle  of  the  summer  the  King  had  under- 
taken an  enumeration  of  "all  the  good  and  faithful  Catho- 
lics of  the  various  provinces  so  that  he  can  know  what 
forces  he  can  rely  on  if  occasion  presents  itself,  because  the 
will  of  His  Majesty  is  to  live  and  die  in  the  same  religion  as 
his  predecessors  and  he  wants  to  know  the  number  of  those 
who  will  follow  his  will  and  die  in  that  religion."  ^ 

The  second  thing  which  increased  the  Huguenot  suspi- 

*  Letts.  Ill,  142,  145,  147,  149,  153,  157,  182;  Cal.  F.  1568,  470,  501.  ' 
'Thompson,  351.  353.  B.  N.  Port.  Font.  316  f.  41;  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  259, 
A.  N.  K.  1609;  Lestrade  pntd..  19. 


380  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

cions  was  what  they  saw  going  on  in  the  Netherlands.  The 
Duke  of  Alva  was  terrorizing  the  population  with  his  army 
and  preparing  for  those  sittings  of  the  "Council  of  Blood" 
of  which  he  wrote  in  the  middle  of  the  spring  to  his  master, 
"the  execution  of  those  already  arrested  and  those  I  am  go- 
ing to  arrest  will  amount  to  more  than  eight  hundred 
heads."  ^ 

The  third  thing  which  increased  the  suspicions  of  the 
Huguenots  was  the  situation  at  court.  Their  bitterest 
enemy,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  had  larger  power  in  the 
state  than  he  had  exercised  since  the  time  of  Francis  II,  and 
he  was  particularly  close  to  the  King's  brother,  the  young 
Duke  of  Anjou,  now  Lieutenant-General.  As  soon  as  this 
was  known  the  Huguenots  began  to  protest  against  it  in  the 
strongest  possible  way.  Conde  answered  publicly  a  mes- 
senger of  the  King  inviting  him  to  court,  "the  reason  why 
the  King's  subjects  cannot  live  in  peace  and  liberty  of  con- 
science as  he  wants  them  to  do,  is  the  friendship  between 
the  Duke  of  Anjou  and  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  you 
can  assure  the  King  that  I  will  not  enter  his  court  so  long 
as  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  remains  there."  To  a  message 
from  the  Cardinal  himself  to  make  friends  with  him  Conde 
replied  that  he  would  never  even  be  reconciled  to  him 
unless  he  would  leave  the  court  and  under  no  circumstances 
would  he  ever  admit  him  to  the  circle  of  his  friends.  The 
strong  dislike  of  the  Cardinal's  influence  was  not  confined 
to  the  Huguenots,  the  four  marshals  resented  it  exceedingly 
because,  through  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  who  was  Lieutenant- 
General  of  the  King,  it  took  all  military  power  out  of  their 
hands,  and  all  those  moderate  Catholics,  counsellors  and 
secretaries  whom  Catherine  had  gathered  around  her,  were 
opposed  to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine's  policy  and  disliked  his 
personality.^ 

The  truth  was  that  the  able  Cardinal  had  a  genius  for 

'  Gachard,  II,  23. 

'Eng.  Yen.  Ferr.  Ambs.  Arch.  Mod,  May  8;  B.  N.  It.  1726,  Cal.  F. 
1568,  pp.  455,  470,  472,  474;  A.  N.  K.  1509  f.  60. 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  381 

exciting  dislike,  and  like  many  proud,  passionate  men  was 
exceedingly  sensitive  to  the  dislike  his  pride  provoked. 
When  the  Cardinal  of  Bourbon,  one  of  his  two  surviving 
associates  of  the  group  which  surrounded  the  Triumvirate 
in  the  first  civil  war,  advised  him  to  retire  from  court  be- 
cause he  was  so  much  hated,  he  complained  bitterly  to  an 
assembly  of  the  heads  of  his  family  held  in  the  room  of  the 
Duke  of  Nemours,  who  had  married  his  brother's  widow. 
He  said  he  had  never  given  anybody  reason  to  hate  him  so 
much  and  begged  the  Duke  of  Nemours  to  stand  by  him. 
His  sister-in-law  broke  in,  saying  that  to  speak  freely,  he 
himself  was  entirely  to  blame  for  all  this,  because  when  he 
might  have  made  friends  without  any  diflSculty  he  had,  on 
the  contrary,  irritated  everybody  against  him  by  turning  the 
cold  shoulder  to  everybody  and  caring  for  nothing  but  his 
own  advantage:  that  she  herself  had  often  begged  him  to 
do  things  for  them  and  for  others  which  he  was  unwilling 
to  do:  that  she  and  her  husband  were  willing  enough  to 
stand  by  him  but  that  he  must  do  differently  from  what  he 
had  done,  because  his  past  conduct  had  infuriated  every- 
body against  him.^ 

The  result  of  this  renewal  of  opposition  and  animosity 
to  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was  the  beginning  of  the  forma- 
tion of  a  third  party  in  France,  the  Party  of  the  Politiques. 
They  were  orthodox,  but  their  fundamental  principle  as 
later  expressed  by  their  leader,  Montmorency,  was  that  "one 
year  of  civil  war  does  more  harm  to  the  Catholic  religion  in 
France  than  ten  years  of  peace  with  the  heretics."  The 
English  Ambassador  thus  describes  the  beginning  of  the 
party: 

"There  be  two  kinds  of  the  people  whom  the  Papists  term 
Huguenots ;  that  is  to  say,  Huguenots  of  religion  and  Huguenots 
of  state.  The  one  of  these,  perceiving  that  the  Cardinal  works 
to  ruin  them  and  their  own  pecuHar  force  being  not  sufficient  to 
withstand  his  malice,  having  shown  appearance  that  they  will 

^Saulnier,  28,  Arch.  Mod.,  9  May,  1568.  Duchess  of  Nemours  was 
sister  of  Duke  to  whom  dispatch  was  sent. 


382  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

join  with  the  other,  who  seeing  themselves  excluded  from  all 
government,  and  those  of  Guise  to  be  first  to  usurp  the  whole 
authority,  presently  practise  a  firm  faction  and  league  between 
themselves,  either  part  promising  to  support  the  other."  ^ 

The  head  of  the  forming  Party  of  Politiques  was  the 
Marshal  Montmorency.  This  eldest  son  of  the  old  Con- 
stable had  never  approved  his  father's  joining  with  the 
Guise  in  the  Triumvirate  against  his  nephews,  the  Chatil- 
lons;  and  indeed  the  Constable  had  been  driven  into  that 
unnatural  alliance  only  by  zeal  for  his  religion  and  only  for 
a  short  time.  One  recorded  utterance  of  his  was  distinctly 
prophetic  of  the  Politique  attitude  his  sons  were  now  taking. 
In  1565  when  the  Nuncio  demanded  that  his  red  hat 
and  his  benefices  should  be  taken  from  Cardinal  Chatillon, 
the  Constable  said,  "I  am  a  Catholic,  but  if  the  Pope  and 
his  ministers  go  about  again  to  trouble  the  realm,  my  sword 
shall  be  Huguenot."  ^ 

Marshal  Montmorency  now  revived  in  a  different  form 
an  ancient  project  of  the  Huguenot  Party  to  unite  the 
houses  of  Valois  and  Tudor.  In  1563  Conde  had  proposed 
to  Queen  Elizabeth  to  marry  the  King,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  he  was  thirteen  and  the  Queen  thirty.  Montmorency 
now  secretly  proposed  to  the  English  Ambassador  that,  in 
order  to  break  up  the  influence  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine 
with  the  young  Duke  of  Anjou,  it  would  be  well  for  the 
Queen  of  England  "not  to  take  in  ill  part  an  overture  of  a 
treaty  of  marriage  proposed  between  her  and  the  Duke." 
The  Ambassador  commented,  "though  the  Queen  never 
meant  that  the  same  should  take  place,  yet  he  thinks  there 
would  thereof  arise  great  commodity,  because  Montmorency 
could  thereby  in  such  sort  creep  into  credit  with  Anjou,  as, 
in  the  end,  to  work  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  out  of  favor."  ' 

Nothing  came  of  this  suggestion  at  the  time,  and,  just  at 
this  juncture,  the  house  of  Guise  won  its  long  lawsuit  with 

*Cal.  F,  470,  Arch.  Vat.  ctd.  L'Epinois,  30, 

'CaJ.  F.  1565,  p.  524. 

*Oal.  F.  1563,  p.  263,  156S,  p.  487, 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  383 

the  house  of  Montmorency  over  the  County  of  Dammartin 
which  had  been  running  for  eight  years.  The  old  quarrel 
between  the  two  houses,  which  dated  back  to  the  time  of 
Francis  I,  reached,  therefore,  the  greatest  pitch  of  intensity 
and  the  Venetian  Ambassador,  even  in  the  face  of  the 
Huguenot  peril,  could  write  that  "it  is  now  become  a  great 
danger  to  the  King  and  the  kingdom."  ^ 

Between  these  three  factions,  the  extreme  orthodox 
headed  by  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  and  the  heir  apparent, 
who  demanded  the  extermination  of  heresy  at  any  cost;  the 
Huguenots  threatening  to  renew  the  civil  war;  and  the  new 
party  of  the  Politiques  driven  by  their  quarrel  with  the 
house  of  Guise  towards  alliance  with  the  Huguenots,  Cath- 
erine found  herself  in  great  danger  of  losing  all  voice  in  the 
government.  The  Modenese  Ambassador,  a  shrewd  ob- 
server, thought  she  was  trying  to  work  "by  her  usual  method 
of  standing  well  with  both  parties  in  order  to  keep  her 
power."  The  English  Ambassador  described  her  policy  in 
detail  as  follows : 

"The  end  of  the  war  brings  no  end  to  this  mortal  hatred 
between  the  houses  of  Guise  and  Montmorency.  The  Queen 
Mother,  perceiving  these  factions  and  not  assured  of  either,  hopes 
by  her  uncertain  dealings  to  nourish  their  enmity  to  her  gain 
without  profit  to  either  and  so  proceeds,  giving  countenance  some- 
times to  the  Guisians  and  otherwhiles  to  the  Montmorency.  And 
although  the  principal  affairs  of  the  realm  be  dealt  with  in  the 
body  of  the  council,  yet  is  not  that  propounded  which  is  meant, 
nor  that  executed  which  there  is  determined,  but,  every  man's 
opinion  heard,  she  makes  her  profit  thereof  and  resolves  what 
she  thinks  best  to  serve  her  turn."  ^ 

That  this  policy  of  balancing  between  parties  was  Cath- 
erine's favorite  and  usual  policy  has  been  asserted  by  so 
many  different  observers  who  knew  her  well  that  it  cannot 
be  doubted,  but  this  time  the  two  ambassadors  were  mis- 
taken.   Catherine  had  determined  not  to  pursue  her  usual 

'  B.  N.  It.  1726  f.  243. 

"Arch.  Mod.,  15  June,  1568;  Cal.  F.  474. 


384  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

middle  policy  of  balancing  between  parties,  but  to  act 
strongly  after  the  model  of  Alva  in  the  Netherlands;  to 
seize  the  leaders  of  the  Huguenots  and  to  railroad  them  to 
the  scaffold.  This  plan,  of  course,  had  been  urged  upon  her 
by  the  leaders  of  the  extreme  Catholics  at  the  interview  of 
Bayonne  and  by  Spain  ever  since.  She  had  previously 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  these  plans,  but  two  things  had  made 
her  change  her  mind.  The  first  was  the  attempt  to  seize  the 
King  at  Meaux.  The  Admiral  had  warned  his  friends  when 
they  insisted  on  making  peace  that  Catherine  would  never 
forget  this  and  the  event  showed  he  was  right.  Catherine 
regarded  it  as  an  unforgivable  piece  of  treachery — not  in- 
volving her  life — but  certainly  the  complete  destruction  of 
her  influence  in  government  and,  as  she  had  written  in  1561 
when  it  v/as  proposed  to  destroy  her  power  by  the  Estates 
General,  she  preferred  "that  if  they  were  going  to  take  her 
honor  they  should  also  take  her  life."  ^ 

In  the  second  place  she  strongly  suspected  that  the 
Huguenots  were  planning  to  renew  the  war.  Early  in  May 
the  Duke  of  Montpensier  wrote  from  central  France  that 
he  had  sent  to  different  places  to  find  out  what  was  going 
on  and  that  the  most  common  report  was  of  a  new  move- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  Huguenots  with  a  rendezvous  either 
at  Paris  or  at  Orleans.  Large  numbers  of  ex-Huguenot 
soldiers  were  said  to  have  arrived  in  the  suburbs  of  Paris 
and  the  Queen  and  her  children  were  heavily  guarded  by 
special  detachments  of  harquebusiers.  The  story  was  started 
and  believed  in  Catholic  circles  that  a  former  lieutenant  of 
the  Admiral,  being  at  the  point  of  death,  sent  for  a  confessor 
and  told  him  that,  at  the  last  assembly  of  the  Huguenot 
chiefs  in  Orleans  before  they  surrendered,  they  had  sworn 
to  murder  the  Queen  and  all  her  children.  It  was  even 
said  that  at  the  suggestion  of  the  father  confessor  the  dying 
man  had  sent  for  two  notaries,  dictated  a  confession  and 
signed  it.  At  the  end  of  June  one  of  her  trusted  agents 
wrote  to  Catherine  from  Orleans,  "Diligence  and  vigilance 

*  Letts.  I,  174. 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  385 

were  never  so  much  needed  as  now.  ...  Our  enemies  do 
not  sleep.  The  signs  of  their  activity  appear  every  day. 
God  grant  that  I  may  turn  out  to  be  more  of  a  liar  than  a 
prophet.  If  you  show  my  letters  outside  the  royal  council 
I  shall  be  called  a  fool  or  a  coward,  but  I  should  be  unworthy 
of  my  charge  if  I  didn't  tell  you  what  I  think."  A  little 
later  it  was  reported  from  England  that  Conde  had  written 
to  say  that  "the  peace  was  not  being  kept,  though  he  did  not 
blame  the  King  but  his  bad  counsellors.  He  would  take 
arms  very  soon  with  twelve  thousand  men."  In  August  the 
Duke  of  Montpensier  wrote  repeatedly  to  Catherine  and  the 
King  if  "the  warnings  which  came  to  me  regularly  from 
several  different  places  are  true,  we  are  very  close  to  war." 
About  the  same  time  the  Lieutenant-General  of  Languedoc 
wrote  to  his  Governor,  "the  Huguenots  are  assembled  in 
arms  in  the  mountains  and  those  of  Dauphiny  and  Provence 
are  on  the  march  for  La  Rochelle."  ^ 

These  fears  were  much  increased  by  the  suspicion 
that  the  Huguenots  had  an  understanding  with  the  Dutch 
insurgents.  When  Alva  about  two  weeks  before  the  Hugue- 
not rising  at  Meaux  had  arrested  Egmont  and  Horn,  the 
richest  and  the  ablest  of  all  the  Dutch  nobles  had  escaped 
his  hand.  Just  before  Alva  arrived,  William,  Prince  of 
Orange,  had  crossed  the  border  into  Germany  after  vainly 
urging  Egmont  and  Horn  to  go  with  him.  In  the  spring  of 
1568,  by  pledging  all  his  great  estates,  he  gathered  a  force 
of  German  mercenaries  and  Dutch  refugees  and  threw  them 
suddenly  in  three  places  across  the  border.  With  these 
invasions  a  body  of  Huguenots  coming  from  the  South  was 
to  cooperate  and  the  Seigneur  de  Cocqueville  actually  ap- 
peared on  the  border  with  some  thousand  disbanded  Hugue- 
not soldiers.  Conde  repudiated  this  action  and  said  it  was 
done  without  authority  from  him,  but  he  was  not  believed. 
The  project  of  an  alliance  between  Conde,  Coligny  and  the 

^B.  N.  Nouvs.  Acqs.  6001  f.  21.  23.  33.  ib.  599,  f.  170;  St.  Petersburg 
24  It.  1726  f.  226,  234  fds.  fr.  3179  f.  25.  Arch  Mod.,  May  6,  Neg.  Tosc, 
III,  574. 


386  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

Prince  of  Orange  "having  before  their  eyes  loyalty  to  their 
princes  led  into  tyranny  by  bad  counsel,  to  help  each  other 
as  far  as  they  could  for  the  glory  of  God,  the  public  good 
and  the  hberty  of  religion,"  ^  which  was  drawn  up  by 
someone  in  August,  1568,  was  never  signed,  but  there  was 
the  greatest  sympathy  between  the  two  insurrections. 
Huguenot  soldiers  fought  in  the  ranks  of  Orange  and  later 
he  and  his  brother  joined  the  Huguenot  army. 

Urged  therefore  by  resentment  for  the  attack  at  Meaux 
and  fear  of  its  renewal,  Catherine,  whose  earlier  impression 
that  the  real  cause  of  these  wars  was  "ambition  and  desire 
for  revenge  rather  than  religion"  never  changed,  deter- 
mined to  retaliate  on  the  Huguenot  leaders  in  kind  by 
seizing  them  as  they  had  tried  to  seize  her — to  nip  their 
scheme  in  the  bud.  Whether  she  had  formed  this  plan 
before  making  peace  we  cannot  say.  Some  people  thought 
so.  At  all  events,  by  the  end  of  the  spring  of  1568 
she  definitely  planned  to  treat  Conde  and  the  Admiral  as 
Alva  had  treated  the  confederates  in  the  Netherlands;  a 
resolution  urged  on  her  by  letters  from  Philip  11.^ 

It  was  very  difficult  to  conceal  from  the  Huguenots  for 
very  long  any  resolution  formed  at  court.  They  had  spies 
among  the  under-secretaries  and  also  many  friends  even  at 
the  royal  council  board.  The  news  which  came  from  them 
was  very  alarming,  though  it  is  questionable  whether  any 
of  these  informers  got  hold  of  the  actual  thread  of  the  plot. 
In  addition,  they  knew  that  guards  had  been  put  at  all  fords 
and  bridges  consisting  of  a  captain  and  twelve  men.  They 
were  to  allow  nobody  to  pass  without  knowing  where  he 
came  from  and  where  he  was  going.  The  King  was  gath- 
ering troops  which  were  being  disposed  in  such  a  way  as  to 
cut  off  the  Huguenot  leaders,  Conde  and  the  Admiral,  who 
were  in  Burgundy,  from  their  followers  in  the  South.  A 
spy  was  captured  at  Noyers,  the  small  but  well  fortified 

*Groen,  III. 

""As  she  has  often  said  to  me."  Rel.  I,  4.  p.  180;  A.  N.  K.  1511, 
May  4,  1568. 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  387 

town  in  which  Conde  had  taken  refuge,  who  confessed  he 
had  been  sent  to  measure  the  height  of  the  walls  and  to 
count  the  number  in  the  garrison.  They  could  not  help  but 
see  the  effect  of  Catherine's  secret  plan  to  appoint  none  but 
Catholics  as  governors  of  cities  and  to  get  the  command  of 
the  captaincies  of  men  at  arms  so  far  as  possible  in  the 
hands  of  "marked"  Catholics.  They  did  not  know  that 
early  in  June  Ruscellai  had  been  sent  to  Rome  by  Catherine 
at  the  instance  of  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  to  ask  the  Pope 
to  give  three  hundred  thousand  scudi  to  make  strong  war 
against  the  Huguenots.  Fifty  years  later  the  Memoirs  of 
Tavannes,  written  by  his  son,  said  that  "in  the  month  of 
August,  the  Queen  determined  with  the  assistance  of  the 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine  to  carry  out  the  objects  for  which  she 
had  made  peace.  She  sent  therefore  to  Tavannes  the 
command  to  arrest  the  Prince  (of  Conde)  in  Noyers."  The 
Queen,  he  goes  on  to  explain,  was  counselled  more  by  pas- 
sion than  by  reason  and  he  replied  to  her  that  "the  under- 
taking was  dangerous  and  proposed  by  excited  and  inex- 
perienced men.  ...  If  it  pleased  His  Majesty  to  declare 
open  war,  he  would  then  prove  that  he  knew  how  to  serve 
him,  but  if  he  should  be  willing  to  carry  out  this  command, 
Conde  and  the  Admiral,  having  good  horses,  would  save 
themselves  and  .  .  .  the  princes  of  this  party  would  always 
remain  his  mortal  enemies."  The  Memoirs  continue: 
"Tavannes  thought  it  best  to  give  the  alarm  to  the  Prince 
of  Conde,  therefore  he  sent  a  messenger  with  a  letter  which 
contained  this  sentence :  'The  stag  is  in  the  net,  the  hunt  is 
ready.'  Conde  suddenly  left  in  alarm,  with  all  his  family."  ^ 
The  Memoirs  of  Tavannes  were  written  so  long  after 
the  events  they  described  and  contain  so  much  of  his  son 
and  so  little  of  himself,  that  careful  historians  have  used 
them  with  suspicion,  but  this  story,  told  long  afterwards,  is 
confirmed  in  the  most  striking  way  by  three  contemporary 

'D'Aumale,  pntd.  II,  App.  280,  287.  Serres,  19;  Pasquier,  Bk.  VI,  6; 
Hug.  Envoy  to  Council  of  Beme,  Frankreich  D  473;  A.  N.  K.  1511,  Sp. 
Amb.  reports  talk  with  Catherine,  Arch.  Mod.  13,  18  June.    Tavannes,  35. 


388  CATHERINE  DE  MEDICIS 

documents  which  the  man  who  told  it  had  never  seen. 
These  documents  so  far  as  I  know  have  escaped  the  notice  of 
historians.  The  Spanish  Ambassador  reports  in  two  dis- 
patches that  Catherine  told  him  so  cautiously  that  she  drew 
with  her  own  hand  the  curtains  of  the  gallery  in  which  they 
were  walking,  that  Tavannes  had  been  ordered  to  capture 
or  kill  Conde  and  the  Admiral  and  he  had  refused.  The 
Legate,  who  had  every  chance  to  know  the  facts, 
writing  a  year  later  about  these  events,  said,  "The  peace  (of 
Longjumeau)  was  made  to  catch  the  heads  of  the  cursed 
sect  after  they  had  laid  down  their  arms,  but  the  traitors 
who  gave  this  counsel,  or  at  least  joined  in  it,  let  the  foxes 
out  of  the  trap  and  those  in  charge  of  carrying  out  the  plan 
gave  such  timely  warning  to  the  rebels  that  they  left  Noyers 
and  got  safely  to  La  Rochelle."  ^ 

Although  the  Huguenots  did  not  know  these  facts,  which 
prove  to  us  the  intentions  of  Catherine,  they  knew  enough 
to  be  alarmed  and  on  their  guard.  "The  Prince  of  Conde 
was  warned  by  some  of  the  greatest  nobles  of  France  and 
members  of  the  royal  council  that  they  were  preparing  to 
besiege  Noyers  with  an  army  in  order  to  take  him  or  to  kill 
him  and  the  Admiral  and  others  who  were  with  him,  while 
forces  from  two  other  directions  were  to  cut  off  their  re- 
treat." -  Early  in  the  morning  of  the  23rd  of  August,  1568, 
the  Prince  and  the  Admiral,  with  their  families,  and  friends, 
set  out  on  a  forced  march  through  the  midst  of  their  ene- 
mies across  France  to  reach  the  Huguenot  stronghold  of 
La  Rochelle.  Before  starting  Conde  issued  a  declaration  and 
justification  of  war.  This  and  subsequent  declarations  gave 
the  reasons  why  the  Huguenots  believed  there  was  a  plot  on 
the  part  of  the  Catholics  to  seize  their  chiefs  and  suppress 
their  religion  in  France  and  throughout  all  Europe.  They 
also  pointed  out  the  violence  and  assassinations  which  they 
had  suffered  in  many  places  and  alleged  that  commissions 

'A.  N.  K.  1511,  1509  f.  4;  Arch.  Vat.  5269  f.  63.  Pntd.  Thompson,  553. 
Ranke  says  is  by  Legate. 

'Areh.  Berne  Frankreich,  D.  473.     Statement  of  Huguenot  Envoy. 


CATHERINE  MAKES  PEACE  389 

liaof  been  sent  to  all  governors  to  seize  the  leading  Hugue- 
nots in  order  that  "the  wolves  might  have  an  easier  time 
with  the  sheep  when  the  sheep  dogs  were  taken  away." 
As  they  had  no  such  plain  proof  of  the  intended  treachery 
of  Catherine  as  we  now  possess,  somebody  in  the  party 
prepared  a  forged  document  which  contained  false  proof 
of  what  they  rightly  suspected.  It  was  in  the  form  of 
a  letter  supposedly  written  by  the  agent  of  the  Car- 
dinal of  Crequy  at  the  court  to  his  master.  He  wishes  to 
explain  how  it  is  that  the  King  is  sending  out  letters  to  his 
officers  to  assure  the  chiefs  of  the  Huguenot  nobility  that 
he  intends  to  keep  the  Edict  and  to  maintain  their  liberty 
of  worship.  This  is  only  to  ''amuse  and  put  them  to  sleep/' 
and  to  catch  all  the  leaders  "in  oider  that  we  may  be  able 
to  exterminate  this  vermin  without  leaving  a  single  person 
in  the  realm  who  is  infected,  because  that  will  be  a  seed 
to  renew  the  evil,  unless  we  follow  this  way  in  which  our 
neighbors  (allusion  to  Alva  in  the  Netherlands)  are  showing 
us  such  a  good  example."  ^ 

In  reply  to  the  Huguenot  manifesto,  the  King  accused 
them  of  having  broken  the  Edict  because  some  of  the  cities 
which  were  to  be  surrendered  to  the  King  had  not  been 
surrendered;  like  Sancerre,  Montauban  and  the  smaller 
places  of  Dauphiny  and  Languedoc.  La  Rochelle  not  only 
refused  to  receive  her  garrison,  but  was  building  fortifica- 
tions and  equipping  vessels  of  war  without  the  permission 
of  the  King.  The  Admiral  and  Conde  were  accused  of 
making  alliance  with  the  Flemings  and  the  Germans  for  the 
ruin  of  the  Catholics  and  the  establishment  of  their  pre- 
tended Reformation.- 

'■  Pntd.  Histoire  de  Nostre  Temps.    See  N. 

'Summary  of  reasons,  both  sides,  La  Popeliniere,  Bk.  XIV,  51. 


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